In short, in everything except the dividends, our scheming friend finds that recent fact has outstripped his early fictions. He told the nervous old ladies and shaky “half-pays” on his projected line, that Railways were quite as safe as stage-coaches. What say the grave records of 1849? The lives of five passengers were lost during that year and those by one accident—a cause, of course, beyond the control of the victims; eighteen more casualties took place, for which the sufferers had themselves alone to blame. Five lives lost by official mismanagement, out of sixty-four millions of risks, is no very outrageous proportion; especially when we reflect that, taking as a basis the calculations of 1843, the number of miles travelled over per rail during last year, may be set down at eight hundred and forty-five millions; or _nine times the distance between the earth and the sun_. Such are the Railway wonders of the year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine. THE WATER-DROPS. A FAIRY TALE. CHAPTER THE FIRST. The Suitors of Cirrha, and the young Lady; with a reference to her Papa. Far in the west there is a land mountainous, and bright of hue, wherein the rivers run with liquid light; the soil is all of yellow gold; the grass and foliage are of resplendent crimson; where the atmosphere is partly of a soft green tint, and partly azure. Sometimes on summer evenings we see this land, and then, because our ignorance must refer all things that we see, to something that we know, we say it is a mass of clouds made beautiful by sunset colours. We account for it by principles of Meteorology. The fact has been omitted from the works of Kaemtz or Daniell; but, notwithstanding this neglect, it is well known in many nurseries, that the bright land we speak of, is a world inhabited by fairies. Few among fairies take more interest in man’s affairs than the good Cloud Country People; this truth is established by the story I am now about to tell. Not long ago there were great revels held one evening in the palace of King Cumulus, the monarch of the western country. Cirrha, the daughter of the king, was to elect her future husband from a multitude of suitors. Cirrha was a maiden delicate and pure, with a skin white as unfallen snow; but colder than the snow her heart had seemed to all who sought for her affections. When Cirrha floated gracefully and slowly through her father’s hall, many a little cloud would start up presently to tread where she had trodden. The winds also pursued her; and even men looked up admiringly whenever she stepped forth into their sky. To be sure they called her Mackerel and Cat’s Tail, just as they call her father Ball of Cotton; for the race of man is a coarse race, and calling bad names appears to be a great part of its business here below.