The next and last table contains a list of the losses at the battle of Lissa (July, 1866) on board each ship:

[L.]-Casualties at the Naval Battle of Lissa, July, 1866.

The foregoing papers and tables have been selected from among a large amount of valuable statistics which have been brought together by the various members of the Central Statistical Commission with no little labor, and for which the members of the Commission deserve the consideration of statists in all countries.

It is exceedingly gratifying to find evidence of so much real progress in statistical organization in Austria. There is scarcely a country in Europe in which the immediate and direct value of accurate statistical data will be greater; and looking at the manner in which the Central Commission has hitherto conducted its proceedings, we are justified in expecting from its example and influence the best results.

RAILROAD EARNINGS FOR SEPTEMBER.

The gross earnings of the under-mentioned railroads for the month of September, 1866 and 1867, comparatively, and the difference (increase or decrease) between the two periods, are exhibited in the following state

The gross earnings per mile of road operated for the same months of the two years are shown in the table which follows:

5,593,523 5,639,601 46,078
4,664,525 4,798,978 134,453
5,378,441 5,413,437 34,996

$53,984,290 $54,565,033 $880,743

The tables given above show the approximate earnings of the leading railroads in gross and per mile for the month of September, 1866 and 1867. It will be seen that in 1867 the earnings of all, except of the Atlantic and Great Western, are in excess of those for the corresponding month of the previous year, and of any past month of the current year. The causes of this change for the better are well known, and have received from us sufficient discussion in the late issues of the CHRONICLE. The chief among them, as we have already pointed out, is the large and increasing grain movement in the West; and for the purpose of the further illustration of this movement we have compiled, and here introduce the following statement showing the receipts of flour and grain at the lake ports of Chicago, Milwaukee, Toledo, Detroit and Cleveland, for the

five weeks ending with September 28, and the corresponding weeks of

Decrease 1867.

Increase 1867.

543,320 4,764,201 5,537,015
663,996 7,671,906 4,024,811 3,639,276 1,332,653 490,549
1,502,204

120,676 2,907,705

2,758,217 1,061,008 195,155 This statement, however, accounts only for the trade from West to East. The Fall trade of the seaboard cities has created a like freighting movement from East to West. The total result is shown in earnings footing up in gross $8,448,865 against the earnings in September, 1866, which amounted only to $7,178,435-making a difference in favor of September, 1867, of $1,270,430, or 17.69 per cent. Taking the whole mileage operated in the years respectively as the divisor, the quotient for 1866 is $1,020, and for 1867, $1,186-difference, $166 per mile of road. The results of the third quarter of the current year, compared with those of the corresponding quarter of 1866, are shown in the statement which follows:

The improvement in the earnings for the third quarter of 1867 over those of 1866 is $1,410,947, or 7.14 per cent. being a gain of $163 per mile of road operated. In the second quarter there is a deficit of $180 per mile. The first quarter showed a small gain ($2) per mile. If we take the gross earnings for the nine months, we find a gain in the current year over the previous one of $580,743. But the earnings of 1867 were made on increased mileage. And hence the amount per mile for

the first three shows a small decrease, the earnings having been for 1866 $7.675 per mile, and for 1867 $7,660 per mile, a loss in 1867 of $15 per mile. This difference will, however, be converted into a gain by the end of October; and there is now every prospect of the current year giving even a larger return of gross earnings than its predecessor. We also anticipate much larger profits to the companies owning these railroad, as no such large sums have been taken from income for improvements, extraordinary repairs or rolling stock, as in previous years, and in many instances a greater economy has been practised in working expenditures. Several of the Western roads, however, received considerable damage by storms and floods in the early months of 1867, which undoubtedly must have used up very large sums in their restoration to a proper working condition.

RAILROAD LEGISLATION.

There is, perhaps, no part of the statute book, either in Europe or America, which has been subjected of late years to such unceasing tinkering, or which presents so varied and unsatisfactory a condition, as that portion which is devoted to the railroad system—its internal organization, and its relations to the community. There is certainly no part of the duty of legislators in modern communities which is more delicate-no part which requires more knowledge, or a more advanced spirit of progress-than that which relates to this subject; and nowhere can be found a more urgent call for reform. In France, in England, and in the United States-countries of which the several railroad systems are organized on principles diametrically opposed, and varying from the extreme system of governmental protection and control in France, through the whole range of private legislation, to what amounts to almost a free trade in railways in many parts of America-yet in all these countries the same condition of affairs has resulted, and a call for reform is heard; a demand for readjustment of interests on some basis more satisfactory than any which now exists between railroads and their proprietors and the community at large. In France and England this demand has led to the appointment of carefully selected commissions, and to the publication by them of learned and elaborate reports; and, in America, it leads to incessant legislative agitations and never-ending reports of committees, while the AntiMonopoly Cheap Freight Railway League has recently been organized in New York, with a view to a systematic agitation and reform of the whole subject. It is not proposed in the present paper to enter into any elaborate review of the reports of the European commissions, or of the publications of the American League, but it is proposed to look in the statutebooks, and to examine a few of the fundamental principles of our statute law in relation to railroads, as that law now exists, with a view to testing their value, or their accordance with either philosophical principles or the results of experience.

The whole of the existing body of the railroad law, as it stands in the statute-book, is necessarily the growth of the last forty years; yet the

principles now at the basis of that law were distinctly laid down in the crude charters granted about the year 1830. In them also may be clearly read how very vaguely the common-sense legislators of those days appreciated the new power with which they had to deal. Their imagination did not reach beyond a conviction that improved turnpikes were in process of construction; they drew their analogies from stage-coaches rather than steamboats; and the fundamental idea was improvement and not revolution. Thus, in England, the earlier charters granted followed as closely as possible the provisions which had previously been applied to canal companies. In their capacity as owners of the road, the new companies were not intended to have any monopoly or preferential use of the means of communication on their lines of railway; but, on the contrary, provision was uniformly made in the charters to enable all persons, on payment of a certain toll and under certain limitations, to enjoy the use of the road; and it was only when the anticipated improvement had developed into a general revolution that the railway companies, in order to make their undertakings remunerative, were compelled to embark in the business of common carriers, and to conduct the whole operations of their lines of road themselves. In the earliest charters of Massachusetts, likewise, granted in March, 1830, the corporation is authorized to build its road, and to collect tolls from all persons or property conveyed over it; and, to the more efficient collection of the same, it is authorized "to erect toll-houses, establish gates, appoint toll-gatherers, and demand toll upon the road, and to prescribe, by rules and regulations, conditions for the transportation of persons and property, the construction of wheels, the form of cars and carriages, the weight of loads, and all other matters and things in relation to the use of said road;" and it is further prescribed that the road may be used "by any persons who shall comply with such rules and regulations." The road, in fact, existed in the minds of the legislators of both countries, as improved turnpikes, over which, as over all other turnpikes, all persons should have a right of transportation for themselves or their goods, in their own or the company's carriages, and supplying, if need be, their own motive power, upon their compliance with certain rules and regulations.

The legislators of those days were satisfied with these plain, commonsense views, based simply on past experience. They were content to try the experiment, and to let legislation introduce itself as its influence was found to be necessary. To make easy, however, the introduction of such legislation whenever the necessity for it arose, they inserted into the charters various saving and restrictive clauses. Where, as results have shown, legislators were possessed with so wholly inadequate a conception of the interests about which they were legislating, it is at least probable that these temporary provisions made by them will not prove to have been the best possible basis of a system, and, as will be contended, the history of the railroad system has afforded no exception to the rule of probabilities in this case; yet the clauses, of the description referred to, then introduced into those early charters, have, with a few unessential alterations, continued to this day part and parcel of the fundamental railroad law. These restrictive and provisionary clauses will be found to have a strange similarity, whether examined among the Acts of Parliament or under the