Fast travelling is one of the most dangerous as well as one of the most expensive luxuries connected with the railroad system. Few companies in America have any idea what their express-trains cost them. Indeed, the proper means of obtaining quick transport are not at all understood. It is not by forcing the train at an excessively high speed, but by reducing the number of stops. A train running four hundred miles, and stopping once in fifty minutes,--each stop, including coming to rest and starting, being five minutes,--to pass over the whole distance in eight hours, must run fifty-five miles per hour; stopping once in twenty minutes, sixty-three miles per hour; and stopping once in ten minutes, eighty-six miles per hour. The proportions in which the working expenses are distributed under the several heads are nearly as follows:-- Management 7 Road-repairs 16 Locomotives 35 Cars 38 Sundries 4 ____ In all 100 And the percentage of increase due to fast travelling, to be applied to the several items of expense, with the resulting increase in total expense, this:-- Management 7 increased by 0 per cent. is 0.0 Road-repairs 16 do. 27 do. 4.3 Locomotives 35 do. 30 do. 10.5 Cars 38 do. 10 do. 3.8 Sundries 4 do. 0 do. 0.0 ____ ____ 100 And the whole increase 18.6 The causes of accident beyond the control of passengers are,-- Collision by opposition, Collision by overtaking, Derailment by switches misplaced, Derailment by obstacles on the track, Breakage of machinery, Failure of bridges, Fire, Explosion. Those causes which are aggravated by fast travelling are the first, second, fifth, and sixth. The effects of all are worse at high than at low velocities. The proportion of accidents due to each of these causes, taken at random from one hundred cases on English roads, (American reports do not detail such information with accuracy,) were,-- Collision 56 56 Breakage of machinery 18 18 Failure of road 14 14 Misplaced switches 5 Obstacles on rails 6 Boiler explosions 1 __ ___ 88 100 Eighty-eight per cent. being from those causes which are aggravated by increase of speed; and if we suppose the amount of aggravation to augment as the speed, the danger of travelling is eighty-eight per cent. greater by a fast than by a slow train. These are the direct evils of high speeds; there are also indirect evils, which are full as bad.