At the time the Shipton accident occurred the success of the modern train-brake, which places the speed of each of the component parts of the train under the direct and instantaneous control of him who is in charge of the locomotive, had for years been conceded even by the least progressive of American railroad managers. The want of such a brake and the absence of proper means of communication between the parts of the train had directly and obviously caused the murderous destructiveness of the accident. Yet in the investigation which ensued it appeared that the authorities of the Great Western Railway, being eminently "practical men," still entertained as respected the train-brake "very grave doubts of the wisdom of adopting [it] at all;" while at the same time, as respected a means of communication between the parts of the train, it appeared that the associated general managers of the leading railways "did not think that any [such] means of communication was at all required, or likely to be useful or successful." Though quite incomprehensible, there is at the same time something superb in such an exhibition of stolid conservatism. It is British. It is, however, open to but one description of argument, the _ultima ratio_ of railroad logic. So long as luck averted the loss of life in railroad disasters, no occasion would ever have been seen for disturbing time-honored precautions or antiquated appliances. While, how ever, a disaster like that of December 24, 1874, might not convince, it did compel: in spite of professed "grave doubts," incredulity and conservatism vanished, silenced, at least, in presence of so frightful a row of corpses as on that morning made ghastly the banks of the Cherwell. The general, though painfully slow and reluctant, introduction of train-brakes upon the railways of Great Britain may be said to have dated from that event.