Accidents by fire are awfully numerous, and no class or rank of life is exempt from them, but they are naturally more numerous among the children of the humbler classes than in the superior stations of life. From the nature of female dress, the sex is not only more exposed to these accidents than men are, and the consequences are less fatal to males than they are to females. Fire-escapes have been a means, under Divine Providence, of saving many lives from destruction in houses on fire.[69] Distressing and harassing as railway and other accidents are in this country, their number and frequency in the United States are utterly appalling. Of accidents to American railway trains in 1866, there were 82, by which 115 persons were killed and 607 were wounded. “This,” says the writer from whom the foregoing information is derived, “is an improvement over 1865, when there were 183 railroad accidents, killing 335 persons outright, and wounding 1,427 others.” It appears also that 1866 exhibits a better report in this respect than any year since 1861, but it must not be forgotten that in American accidents “persons wounded” means only those who were not “killed outright” at the time of an accident. The great hulk of the wounded die subsequently, and should in reality be included among the killed. Persons who only suffer from minor wounds and injuries are not reported. It is only in England that the slightest injuries are reported and are included in the general account of persons injured. There were 23 steam-boat disasters on the various rivers and inland waters of the United States during 1866, by which 633 persons were killed and 156 wounded. In 1865, by 32 such accidents, 1,788 persons were killed and 265 were injured; but in 1865 a larger number of persons were killed in this way than in any previous year since 1854. What the numbers were in 1854 the writer who imparts the foregoing information does not mention; but he adds:—“These figures do not include any loss of life by disasters on the ocean.” As, until the outbreak of the war of 1862, the mercantile marine of the United States was equal to that of the United Kingdom, we may conclude, even making allowance for its recent diminution, that there must have been more lives lost on the sea than on the lakes, because American-built ships have always been notoriously less solidly built than British, and because the United States does not possess life-boats and other means of saving life such as we happily have in such abundance in this country. We conclude this chapter by repeating the painful admission that railway accidents are inevitable. It must, however, be added, as an act of justice to railway officials, that their efforts are never-ceasing to prevent them. But, after all, how feeble and powerless is poor humanity! CHAPTER VII. HORSES AND ENGINES—CREWE.