Mulhall, in his "Dictionary of Statistics," an English work, uses substantially these same figures and makes the following comparison between European and American railways:
_Accidents to Passengers, Employees, and Others._
---------------+---------+----------+--------+------------- | | | | Per million | Killed. | Wounded. | Total. | passengers. ---------------+---------+----------+--------+------------- United States | 2,349 | 5,867 | 8,216 | 41.1 United Kingdom | 1,135 | 3,959 | 5,094 | 8.1 Europe | 3,213 | 10,859 | 14,072 | 10.8 ---------------+---------+----------+--------+-------------
That the figures given above are much too high as regards the United States, there can be no doubt. For the fiscal year 1880-81 the data compiled by the Railroad Commissioners of Massachusetts and published in their reports give as the total number of persons killed and injured in the United States 2,126, as against 8,216 upon which the comparisons in the above table are based. If we substitute in this table the former number for the latter, it would reduce the number of injured per million passengers in the United States to 10.6, about the same as on the European railways.
Edward Bates Dorsey gives the following interesting table of comparisons in his valuable work, "English and American Railroads Compared:"
_Passengers Killed and Injured from Causes beyond their own Control on all the Railroads of the United Kingdom and those of the States of New York and Massachusetts in 1884._
-----------------+---------+---------------------------+-------+------ | Total | | | | length | Total mileage. | | In- | of line +-------------+-------------+Killed.|jured. |operated.| Train. | Passengers. | | -----------------+---------+-------------+-------------+-------+------ United Kingdom | 18,864 | 272,803,220 |6,042,659,990| 31 | 864 New York | 7,298 | 85,918,677 |1,729,653,620| 10 | 124 Massachusetts | 2,852 | 32,304,333 |1,007,136,376| 2 | 42 -----------------+---------+-------------+-------------+-------+------ In | | | | | 1,000,000,000 | | | | | passengers | | | | | transported | | | | | 1 mile. | | | | | | | | | | United Kingdom | | | | 5.15 | 143 New York | | | | 5.78 | 70 Massachusetts | | | | 2.00 | 42 -----------------+---------+-------------+-------------+-------+------