In Great Britain, therefore, the long battle of the brakes would seem to be drawing to its close. The final struggle, however, will be a spirited one, and one which Americans will watch with considerable interest,--for it is in fact a struggle between two American brakes, the Westinghouse and the Smith vacuum. Of the 907 locomotives hitherto equipped with the continuous brakes no less than 819 are equipped with one or the other of these American patents, besides over 4,464 of the 9,919 passenger carriages. The remaining 3,857 locomotives and 30,000 carriages are the prize of victory. As the score now stands the vacuum brake is in almost exactly twice the use of its more scientific rival. The weight of authority and experience, and the requirements of the Board of Trade, are, however, on the opposite side. As deduced from the European scientific tests and the official returns, the balance of advantages would seem to be as follows:--In favor of the vacuum are its superficial simplicity, and possible economy in first cost:--In favor of the Westinghouse automatic are its superior quickness in application, the greater rapidity in its stopping power, the more durable nature of its materials, the smaller cost in renewal, its less liability to derangement, and above all its self-acting adjustment. The last is the point upon which the final issue of the struggle must probably turn. The use of any train-brake which is not automatic in its action, as has already been pointed out, involves in the long run disaster,--and ultimate serious disaster. The mere fact that the brake is generally so reliable,--that ninety-nine times out of the hundred it works perfectly,--simply makes disaster certain by the fatal confidence it inspires. Ninety-nine times in a hundred the brake proves reliable;--nine times in the remaining ten of the thousand, in which it fails, a lucky chance averts disaster;--but the thousandth time will assuredly come, as it did at Communipaw and on the New York Elevated railway, and, much the worst of all yet, at Wollaston. Soon or late the use of non-automatic continuous brakes will most assuredly, if they are not sooner abandoned, be put an end to by the occurrence of some not-to-be forgotten catastrophe of the first magnitude, distinctly traceable to that cause. Meanwhile that automatic brakes are complicated and sometimes cause inconvenience in their operation is most indisputable. This is an objection, also, to which they are open in common with most of the riper results of human ingenuity;--but, though sun-dials are charmingly simple, we do not, therefore, discard chronometers in their favor; neither do we insist on cutting our harvests with the scythe, because every man who may be called upon to drive a mowing machine may not know how to put one together. But what Sir Henry Tyler has said in respect to this oldest and most fallacious, as well as most wearisome, of objections covers the whole ground and cannot be improved upon.