Mr. C. F. Adams, remarks:—“Indeed, from the time of Mr. Huskisson’s death, during the period of over eleven years, railroads enjoyed a remarkable and most fortunate exemption from accidents. During all that time there did not occur a single disaster resulting in any considerable loss of life. This happy exemption was probably due to a variety of causes. Those early roads were in the first place, remarkably well and thoroughly built, and were very cautiously operated under a light volume of traffic. The precautions then taken and the appliances in use would, it is true, strike the modern railroad superintendent as both primitive and comical; for instance, they involve the running of independent pilot locomotives in advance of all night passenger trains, and it was, by the way, on a pioneer locomotive of this description, on the return trip of the excursion party from Manchester after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, that the first recorded attempt was made in the direction of our present elaborate system of night signals. On that occasion obstacles were signalled to those in charge of the succeeding trains by a man on the pioneer locomotive, who used for that purpose a bit of lighted tarred rope. Through all the years between 1830 and 1841, nevertheless, not a single serious railroad disaster had to be recorded. Indeed, the luck—for it was nothing else—of these earlier times was truly amazing. Thus on this same Liverpool and Manchester road, as a first-class train on the morning of April 17, 1836, was moving at a speed of some thirty miles an hour, an axle broke under the first passenger carriage, causing the whole train to leave the rails and throwing it down the embankment, which at that point was twenty feet high. The carriages were rolled over, and the passengers in them turned topsy-turvy; nor, as they were securely locked in, could they even extricate themselves when at last the wreck of the train reached firm bearings. And yet no one was killed.” RIVAL CONTRACTORS AND THE BLOTTING PAD.