The Chairman of the Midland Railway explained at the Company's
half-yearly meeting on Tuesday how the abolition of second-class carriages had worked during the last half-year, the first completed since the change ; the passenger traffic shows a net increase of 834,977 persons carried, but the revised first- class has carried upwards of half-a-million of passengers less than the first and second together had previously carried. The development, however, of the third-class business goes on, and a comparison of the whole of the "coaching receipts," compared with those of the preceding half-year, gives a gain of £60,000, or 8 per cent. The directors are moderately satisfied with their experi- ment, but they decline as yet to speak with entire confidence. Some shareholders expressed an opinion that "the old system would have given a better dividend," and the change has hardly worked as was expected upon the first-class traffic, though it has helped savings upon the working expenses. It was believed that the cheapening of the first-class fares would increase the numbers of the first-class travellers of the old type, and that the improved accommodation would draw still larger numbers from the ranks that filled the old second-class ; yet instead of an increase under each head, there is a decrease on the aggregate. It is possible, too, that the third-class traffic which gives the foregoing favour- able results would have improved, even if no change had been made in the other classes.
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