Mr. Watkin, M.P., the chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, gave, at the recent meeting of the shareholders of that company, a very striking illustration of the motive habits of the metropolitan population. During the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, the total number of passengers conveyed on the South-Eastern Railway was 9,700,000, but of these 7,200,000 came into or went out of its three London stations (Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and London Bridge—the traffic of the last immensely diminished since the opening of the two first), yet the total length of the South-Eastern is 330 miles, and in the usual proportion of stations to mileage on English railways (one for each 3¼ miles) the number of stations is 101. Although we have not the exact figures before us, we believe the same proportions, as regards passenger traffic, holds good on the London, Brighton and South Coast, the South-Western and the Great Western Railways, and nearly so on the Great Eastern and the Great Northern.
The rolling stock of the South Austrian and Alta Italia consists of 963 locomotives, 2,663 passenger carriages, in which are included 11 for the exclusive use of royal personages, 19,182 waggons, in which are included 57 for the service of the Post. Its total mileage of train engines 10,451,870. The amount of rolling stock of the Paris, Lyons, and of the Orleans Companies is not stated in their reports, but the total engine mileage of the former company in 1866 was 17,271,502 miles, of which 9,656,690 were for passenger trains, and 7,614,812 were for goods, cattle, and coal trains; of the Orleans Company 10,715,458, of which 5,878,010 miles were for passenger trains, and 4,837,448 for goods, cattle, and coal trains.
We are not able to state the total mileage of the trains of French railways, but it will be seen by reference to the _Annuaire des Postes de l’Empire Francais_, published on the 1st of January, 1867, a work analagous in its character to the Annual Reports of the Postmaster-General of England, that the postal service of France upon railways was, in 1865, 27,730,000 kilometres, equal to 17,331,250 miles. The British Post Office does not avail itself of all the railways of the United Kingdom for the transmission of mails. Thus the total mileage of British railways on the 1st of January, 1866, was 13,289 miles, but the Post Office only sent mail bags over about 12,000 of them. The Post Office Railway Service is 60,000 miles a day, equal (deducting for Sundays) to 18,780,000 per annum, or about 1,450,000 per annum more than the postal mileage on French railways.