What is the average length of the railroad journey resulting in death by accident to a prudent traveler?--What is the average length of one resulting in some personal injury to him?--These are two questions which interest every one. Few persons, probably, start upon any considerable journey, implying days and nights on the rail, without almost unconsciously taking into some consideration the risks of accident. Visions of collision, derailment, plunging through bridges, will rise unbidden. Even the old traveler who has enjoyed a long immunity is apt at times, with some little apprehension, to call to mind the musty adage of the pitcher and the well, and to ask himself how much longer it will be safe for him to rely on his good luck. A hundred thousand miles, perhaps, and no accident yet!--Surely, on every doctrine of chances, he now owes to fate an arm or a leg;--perhaps a life. The statistics of a long series of years enable us, however, to approximate with a tolerable degree of precision to an answer to these questions, and the answer is simply astounding;--so astounding, in fact, that, before undertaking to give it, the question itself ought to be stated with all possible precision. It is this:--Taking all persons who as passengers travel by rail,--and this includes all dwellers in civilized countries,--what number of journeys of the average length are safely accomplished, to each one which results in the death or injury of a passenger from some cause over which he had no control?--The cases of death or injury must be confined to passengers, and to those of them only who expose themselves to no unnecessary risk.