amidst which it was not impertinently pointed out that Mr. Davies had himself laid much of the road which he now condemned, and, backed by a letter from Mr. George Owen, the engineer, it was shown that his strictures on its existing condition were unsubstantiated by facts. But Mr. Davies stuck to his guns, and before what was well described in the local Press as "a stormy meeting" terminated, he had left the room and his seat on the Board. It was a matter of doubt, for some moments, whether the noble Chairman would not go too, but, happily, he discovered enough signs of confidence among the proprietors present to encourage him to continue his thankless task. It was a tremendous tempest while it lasted, but it was soon over. At the next half-yearly meeting, in the following August, the directors were able to report that, instead of spilt blood, the summer had brought a considerably increased weight of tourist traffic, hearty congratulations were showered on Mr. George Lewis, the Secretary, on his efficient administration of the line, and Capt. R. D. Pryce, presiding, in the absence of the Marquess, concluded the proceedings on a happy note of assurance that directors and shareholders were "of one mind," and full of sanguine expectations as to the future of their undertaking. The throes of consolidation are sometimes not less severe than those of birth itself, but they can be as successfully survived. CHAPTER X. INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS. "_Railway travelling is safer than walking, riding, driving, than going up and down stairs . . . and even safer than eating_, _because it is a fact that more people choke themselves in England than are killed on all the railways of the United Kingdom_."--THE LATE SIR EDWARD WATKIN. Looking back on considerably more than half a century of history it is no small tribute to human care and human ingenuity that serious accidents on the Cambrian Railways have been relatively rare. This is all the more remarkable because all but some twelve miles of its total length, and up to a few years ago, not even as much as that, has had to be worked on a single line, and with the rapidly increasing tourist traffic of recent times, this has placed a strain on both the human and the metallic machine which may easily try the strongest nerves and the most powerful appliances. Obviously it is due to the special care taken in management, and observed, with few if tragic exceptions, by those directly responsible for the working of the trains.