In the matter of communication between those in the train and those in charge of it, the Shipton corpses chanced not to be witnesses to the precise point. Accordingly their evidence was, so to speak, ruled out of the case, and neither the utility nor the success of any appliance for this purpose was held to be yet proven. What further proof would be deemed conclusive did not appear, but the history of the discussion before and since is not without value. There is, indeed, something almost ludicrously characteristic in the manner with which those interested in the railway management of Great Britain strain at their gnats while they swallow their camels. They have grappled with the great question of city travel with a superb financial and engineering sagacity, which has left all other communities hopelessly distanced; but, while carrying their passengers under and over the ebb and flow of the Thames and among the chimney pots of densest London to leave them on the very steps of the Royal Exchange, they have never been able to devise any satisfactory means for putting the traveller, in case of a disaster to the carriage in which he happens to be, in communication with the engine-driver of his train. An English substitute for the American bell-cord has for more than thirty years set the ingenuity of Great Britain at defiance. As long ago as the year 1857, in consequence of two accidents to trains by fires, a circular on this subject was issued to the railway companies by the Board of Trade, in which it was stated that "from the beginning of the year 1854, down to the present time (December, 1857) there have been twenty-six cases in which either the accidents themselves or some of the ulterior consequences of the accidents would probably have been avoided had such a means of communication existed."[1] As none of these accidents had resulted in any considerable number of funerals the railway managers wholly failed to see the propriety of this circular, or the necessity of taking any steps in consequence of it. As, however, accidents from this cause were still reported, and with increasing frequency, the authorities in July, 1864, again bestirred themselves and issued another circular in which it was stated that "several instances have occurred of carriages having taken fire, or having been thrown off the rails, the passengers in which had no means of making their perilous situation known to the servants of the company in charge of the train. Recent occurrences also of a criminal nature in passenger railway trains have excited among the public a very general feeling of alarm." The last reference was more particularly to the memorable Briggs murder, which had taken place only a few days before on July 9th, and was then absorbing the public attention to the almost entire exclusion of everything else.