“The complete railway returns of the Board of Trade for the year ended the 31st of December, 1865, have just been printed. They are full and elaborate, and would furnish excellent means for estimating the prospects of the enormous property involved, were it not for the drawback of their being issued so long after the period to which they refer. The leading features of the tables now presented may be summarised as follows:—At the end of 1865 the total _ordinary_ capital of the railways of the United Kingdom was £219,598,196. Of this total £183,450,460 was represented by companies paying dividends, and £36,147,736, by companies (chiefly the Great Eastern and London and Chatham) not paying dividends, the latter including £12,849,590 for lines not yet opened. Setting aside the unopened lines, and reckoning only the capital of those at work—namely, £206,748,606—the average rate of distribution was £4. 11s. 5d. per cent., a satisfactory return could an assumption be safely made that it had not been in any degree paid out of capital. The result would have been still better but for the extent to which the average rate is reduced by the circumstance of the profits of the Scotch and Irish being below those of the English lines. The English rate was £4. 14s. 10d. per cent., while the Scotch was £4. 9s. 5d., and the Irish only £2. 16s. 8d. The lowest dividend disbursed by any of the English dividend-paying companies (57 in number) was by the Cromford and High Peak, which on an ordinary capital of £127,700 distributed 8s. per cent. for the year, while the highest was £11. 2s. 6d., by the Lancaster and Carlisle on an ordinary capital of £2,420,300. The main cause of the respectable average of the English dividends is found, however, in the payment of £6. 12s. 6d. per cent. by the London and North-Western on an ordinary capital of £23,378,987; of £6. 15s. per cent. by the Midland, on £10,862,067; and of £7. 2s. 6d. per cent. by the Great Northern, on £6,455,584. At the same time there is an item which must now be regarded as fictitious, of £5. 15s. per cent., by the Brighton line, on an ordinary capital of £5,342,933. Of 19 dividend-paying lines in Scotland, the lowest was the Carlisle and Silloth Bay, 10s. per cent., and the highest was the Kilmarnock and Troon, £9. 5s. per cent., the ordinary capital of the latter being only £40,000. In this list the Caledonian figures for £7. 2s. 6d. on an ordinary capital of £4,141,254. Of 11 dividend-paying lines in Ireland, the lowest was the Waterford and Limerick, 15s. per cent., and the highest the Dublin and Kingstown, 9 per cent. The _preferential_ capital of the railways of the United Kingdom was £124,263,475, and upon this the average rate paid (reckoning a sum of £8,455,279, on which the companies were unable to distribute anything) was £4. 7s. 9d. per cent. The total of the _debenture stock_, or funded debt of the railways in the United Kingdom, was only £13,795,375, and on this the average rate paid was £4.