Twelve months more, on the 30th of June, 1844, with 2,050 miles open, the railway passengers exceeded the total population of the kingdom by 407,799; the numbers being respectively 27,763,602, and 27,355,803, and third class passengers had risen to be almost exactly one-third of the whole. We exclude travellers by road, not because they were less numerous than previously, but because their numbers become every year less important in comparison with the total passenger movement of the empire. For any purposes of computation that may result from these statements, they may fairly be taken for what they were in 1837, 3,359,825. It was in 1848 that the greatest number of miles in any one year were opened for traffic,—1,191; the nearest approach to it was in the previous year,—780. In 1863, the number was 771. The smallest number was in 1843,—91 miles. The following year, 196; and in 1855, 236. The average from 1837 to 1866, both included, has been 690. In the twelve months ending the 30th June, 1848, with an estimated population of 28,015,685, the number of persons travelling by railway had increased to double that of the population, 57,965,071, of whom 29,083,782 were third class,—1,068,097 more than the population, and a few more than one-half of the whole number carried. “The cause of this augmentation of third class passengers is,” says the late Dr. Lardner, in his treatise upon Railway Economy, edition of 1850, “easily explained. Previous to 1846, the carriages provided for third class passengers were frequently without roofs or windows. The third class trains were started at inconvenient hours, and were transported at a comparatively slow rate. In fact, the companies appeared to study the means which were most likely to discourage the use of these cheap trains, prompted, apparently, by the apprehension that the more affluent classes[22] resorting to them, the revenue and profits from the other trains would be diminished.” By these means the humbler classes were, no doubt, deprived in a great measure of the benefit of railway transport. An Act, however, was passed in 1845 for the establishment of at least one third class train a day in each direction, in accordance with a time bill to be previously approved by the Board of Trade, the speed to be not less than twelve miles an hour, and the fare for conveyance—in carriages, the dimensions, seating accommodation, and size of windows of which must be sanctioned by the Board of Trade—not to exceed a penny a mile. Without such approval and sanction, a train is not considered, what is known in railway language, as a “parliamentary train” within the meaning of the Act. The company offending, therefore, is not allowed a remission of the duty on the passengers conveyed by such train, to which it would be otherwise entitled under the certificate of the Board of Trade, and it is liable to penalties for non-fulfilment of the terms of the Act. In