THE PERILS OF THE LONDON STREETS.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 38, 20 November 1871, Page 3

THE PERILS OF THE LONDON STREETS.

The London Daily News says : —“ The battle of the streets rages on from year to year with scarcely varying fortune. In the conflict between unarmed foot passengers and the doubly armed drivers, tho weaker combatants are ridden down without mercy. Counting up the losses in killed and wounded last year in the streets which lie outside the city, we arrive at the terrible aggregate of 2,043. This is an average of about thirty-nine people, or six persons a day for the six busy days of the week and three for each Sunday. Of these 2,043 victims, 124 wero killed, and 1,919 wounded. As to the engines of warfare by which their destruction is accomplished, the return published by tho Chief Commissioner of Police gives some statistics which carry out the impression which Londoners derive from observation. The cabs do a great deal of damage, but they are not the worst offenders. They killed eleven people and wounded 529 during last year. The omnibusses killed seventeen and hurt eighty-five; while carriages and broughams killed but two and injured 243. Heavy carts, waggons, and vans killed sixty-three and wounded 462. But the worst offenders of all are the light carts driven by tradesmen’s boys and shopmen. These carts ran over 636 people during the year, of whom twentyseven were killed. Nearly one-third of the so called accidents in the streets are, therefore, due to these carls. These terrible figures do not include the most densely crowded part of London. The city has its own catalogue of accidents, which do something to swell the aggregate though the city is perhaps the safest part of London. It is surely time that something was done to stop this fearful havoc. If two thousand people fell every year in riot and insurrection, the whole world would be horrified ; but more than two thousand fall in the chronic strife of overbearing drivers, with weak, or feeble, or careless walkers, and we take it as a thing of course. Suppose the Russian plan were introduced and a cart which injured a foot-passenger was forfeited, would the figures of street accidents long tell so terrible a story ?