Massachusetts, again, to walk at will on any part of a railroad track is looked upon as a sort of prescriptive and inalienable right of every member of the community, irrespective of age, sex, color, or previous condition of servitude. Accordingly, during the six years referred to, this right was exercised at the cost of life or limb to 591 persons,--one in four of all the casualties which occurred in connection with the railroad system. In Great Britain the custom of using the tracks of railroads as a foot-path seems to exist, but, so far from being regarded as a right, it is practiced in perpetual terror of the law. Accordingly, instead of some 9,000 cases of death or injury from this cause during these six years, which would have been the proportion under like conditions in Massachusetts, the returns showed only 2,379. These two are among the most constant and fruitful causes of accident in connection with the railroad system of America. In great Britain their proportion to the whole number of casualties which take place is scarcely a seventh part of what it is in Massachusetts. Here they constitute very nearly fifty per cent. of all the accidents which occur; there they constitute but a little over seven. There is in this comparison a good deal of solid food for legislative thought, if American legislators would but take it in; for this is one matter the public policy in regard to which can only be fixed by law. When we pass from Great Britain to the continental countries of Europe, the difficulties in the way of any fair comparison of results become greater and greater. The statistics do not enter sufficiently into detail, nor is the basis of computation apparent. It is generally conceded that, where a due degree of caution is exercised by the passenger, railroad traveling in continental countries is attended with a much less degree of danger than in England. When we come to the returns, they hardly bear out this conclusion; at least to the degree commonly supposed. Take France, for example. Nowhere is human life more carefully guarded than in that country; yet their returns show that of 866,000,000 passengers transported on the French railroads during the eleven years 1859-69, no less than 65 were killed and 1,285 injured from causes beyond their control; or one in each 13,000,000 killed as compared with one in 10,700,000 in Great Britain; and one in every 674,000 injured as compared with one in each 330,000 in the other country. During the single year 1859, about 111,000,000 passengers were carried on the French lines, at a general cost to the community of 2,416 casualties, of which 295 were fatal. In Massachusetts, during the four years 1871-74, about 95,000,000 passengers were carried, at a reported cost of 1,158 casualties. This showing might well be considered favorable to Massachusetts did not the single fact that her returns included more than twice as many deaths as the French,