9 AUGUST 1856, Page 10

THE AMERICAN "SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS."

The Philadelphians have attained to a bad eminence in railway accidents. Prima facie, the monster accident is a result of a single track ; but the worst part of the accident is that which may betel ourselves on our double tracks in any season of long-continued dry weather, and more especially hot weather. If by any accident a locomotive runs off the rails at high speed, the mere sudden stoppage may cause the train to be broken up, and the carriages heaped one upon another in the absorption of the momentum. During the present weather, the materials of the carriage are for the most part equivalent to so much tinder, and a single hot coke from the fire-box would set it in a blaze. What has been done at Philadelphia, what has been done at Versailles, may easily occur here. We need, in short, fireproof carriages, just as much as we need fire-proof dwellings. Carriages may be constructed either of iron or wood : if of iron, they will be incombustible; but if of wood, they may be so treated chemically as to be rendered incombustible. If a train of carriages, built Dutch fashion, of varnished but unpainted timber, were to catch fire to windward during this hot East wind, nothing could save it from destruction ; and the papier mache panels, now largely used, and prepared with oil in order to be water-proof, would be less fire-proof than timber. There is no reason whythe framings ahould not be of timber non-combustible and the panels of iron, to the great advantage of the railway as well as the railway insurance-companies. This might be made a canon of railway law, before a holocaustic accident occurs; but it probably will become so afterwards. We prefer post-contrivances to pre-inventions.

W. BRIDGES ADAMS.