in the kingdom are unremittingly directed to ensuring punctuality to trains, as far as human nature can ensure it. It is the interest of the officials of every grade to have everything on the line working with the precision and fidelity of clockwork. The slightest irregularity at any part of a line at once brings an accession of labour and of responsibility upon the shoulders of every official, be he high or low, connected with it. But happily Englishmen, among whom, of course, we include Scotchmen and Irishmen, placed in positions of trust and responsibility have always acted, and always will act, as Englishmen ought to act—from a consideration that influences them above all other considerations, a sense of duty. Hence no effort that railway officials can make is wanting when irregularities occur. But human means and human appliances break down at the moment least expected; no ingenuity, no foresight can prevent them. The weather, a slight shower of rain, which renders rails slippery at starting; a heated axle, caused by a few particles of grit getting into an axle box, notwithstanding the minute precautions taken to prevent such an incident; the delays, confusion, and blunders of passengers themselves,—an old lady insisting vehemently that she gave her little box with “my best bonnet in it,” to the guard, whilst she had taken it into the compartment, and in her flurry, agitation, or absence of mind[63] at the prospect of her coming to her station, had forgotten that she had at starting placed it on the seat beside her; at ticket collecting and ticket examining platform—for, alas! the prevalence of fraud and dishonesty among—we regret to say, and the remark only applies to a very few as compared with the general mass of travellers—all classes of ticket holders—renders occasional examination of them necessary;[64] but, of course, the most frequent cause of delay on railways proceeds from—without which the railway would he nothing at all—the engines. As is well known, all engines are made of the best materials of every description; but it is not so generally known that—according to the testimony of Sir Francis Head in 1849, and of the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., in 1866—a locomotive consists of 5,416 pieces, all of which, although indebted to machinery for a large portion of the work of their construction, have, nevertheless, each and every one of them, to pass through human hands, and they have to be fitted and put together as carefully as the machinery of a first-class watch. From the moment that a locomotive commences duty she is examined daily by competent and skilled men, whose object is to detect, not only the slightest flaw, but the slightest indication that may lead to one; and if either be detected, to substitute another locomotive which has successfully gone through the ordeal of rigid examination. The engine-driver and firemen are also on the alert, for they know what the