. The earth and its inhabitants ... , and May 16th, 1880, 1,96j British vessels of a burden of 729,194tons and 10,827 lives, were lost at sea, being an annual average of 266 vessels, 98,467 tons, and 1,468lives. t William Tegg, Posts and Telegraphs. X Ch. Dupin, Force commerciale de la Grande-Bretagne. § Sutcliffe, Treatise on Canals and Kescrvoirs. Il Total length of canals, 2,931 miles; traflSc (in England and Wales only), ,110,000 tons in 1868,30 000 000 tons in 1879; gross revenue yielded (United Kingdom;, £1,007,413 in 1875, £2,993,373 in 1878. STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 467 Eng
. The earth and its inhabitants ... , and May 16th, 1880, 1,96j British vessels of a burden of 729,194tons and 10,827 lives, were lost at sea, being an annual average of 266 vessels, 98,467 tons, and 1,468lives. t William Tegg, Posts and Telegraphs. X Ch. Dupin, Force commerciale de la Grande-Bretagne. § Sutcliffe, Treatise on Canals and Kescrvoirs. Il Total length of canals, 2,931 miles; traflSc (in England and Wales only), ,110,000 tons in 1868,30 000 000 tons in 1879; gross revenue yielded (United Kingdom;, £1,007,413 in 1875, £2,993,373 in 1878. STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 467 England may justly feel proud of having been tlie first to open a railway forpassenger traffic, which took place in 1825. No other country of Europe has sincethen expended so large a capital upon the development of its railway system,and nowhere else are locomotives called upon to carry an equal amount ofmerchandise or a larger number of travellers. On an average every inhabitant Fig. 230.—Eail-svay 1 : 7,500,000. NORTH. 10^ W .of Gr. 100 Miles, of the United Kingdom travels twenty times in each, year by rail, whilst everyFrenchman only does so three times. The railways of the British Islandsbelong to ninety-two distinct companies, but the bulk of them are neverthelessowned by a few powerful ones, such as the Great Western, the North-Western,the Midland, the Great Eastern, the South-Western, the Great Northern, the iiiS TUE 13RITISH ISLES. Xortli British, and the Caledonian, which have bought up many of the smallerconcerns and increased their revenues, though not always with a due considerationfor the interests of the public. On an average the net revenue of the railwaycompanies amounts to about one-half of the gross receipts. English railwayengineers have not been called upon to surmount elevated mountain ranges, butthey have thrown bold viaducts across river estuaries and arms of the sea, andconstructed tunnels beneath houses and rivers. The cost of carrying some
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