children of the education they would have had
out of their father's means, of the probability of
his provision for their future settlement in
professions, and of any benefit they might have
derived from his will. The jury awarded, as
compensation, a thousand pounds to the widow,
nothing to the eldest son, and fifteen hundred
to each of the younger children. So that the
Great Northern Company had to pay thirteen
thousand pounds for a life lost through its
attempt to save in a culpable way some thirteen
shillings.

The award was made on the fifteenth of last
June. Eight days afterwards, Lord Campbell
died. He was hardly buried, when newspaper
paragraphs began to inform the public that the
late award of heavy damages had "had the
effect of directing the attention of several
gentlemen interested in railways to the importance
of improving the law on the subject."
There had been, in fact, a conference of chairmen
of the principal railway lines (the "several
gentlemen interested in railways"), at which
it was resolved "that a future Conference should
be held, at which all the railway companies of
the United Kingdom should be invited to decide
in what manner the question should be brought
under the consideration of Parliament."

That conference has yet to be held, and there
could be no time for it better than the present,
no place for it better than the Clayton tunnel,
where, if it were not a hundred thousand times
too small for such a purpose, a meeting might
also be held of several other gentlemen rather
interested in railways, who might be invited to
decide whether, as passengers, they would like a
reduction of the terms on which they might be
slaughtered.

In the face of the late accidents doubtless it
may be thought by railway authorities good
policy not to press the matter, as had been
intended, at the next session of parliament. It
may even be agreed—hopeless as the suggestion
would seem—to wait for a comparatively bloodless
year before making an application, of which
the gist is to be—if we may gather it from the
very few journals that were in this matter of
one mind with the "several gentlemen"—that
there shall be a reduction of the rates for killing
men of fortune.

If Lord Campbell's Act is to stand, the desire
of the railways is, that persons of worldly
consideration may be killed on the premises of
railway companies, not only at the shortest notice,
but also at a great reduction of charge. The
slender sums representing worldly compensation
to the children or widow of a poor mechanic these
rich companies do not so much mind paying; but
they do flinch from what they have to pay when
they kill men whose lives are of great money-
value to their families. From all which, it clearly
appears that the whole protection to be got by
the public from the act lies in that part of it
which the railway companies attack; that as
men of all classes travel together, although
the poor man would be little the safer for any
anxiety that a great company would have lest it
should forfeit the sum that may represent the
value of his labour to his family, he does benefit
by the anxiety felt lest the loss of any possible
Crœsus in the train should cause a crash among
the dividends. The law is an equal one; the
principle of compensation just alike to all: but
it is only where, in its equal dealing, it can make
itself most sharply felt in the company's treasury,
that it is of value to a public rather
interested in this matter as a wholesome check
upon rash management.

               STRIKING LIKENESSES.

NATURE has patterns which she sometimes
repeats in her work; jacquard looms of her own,
where she weaves two or three pieces of
humanity, varied perhaps in material and colour,
but of identical style and arrangement—pieces
so much alike, indeed, they can hardly be known
apart. Of such were the two slave boys whom
Toranius, the great slave merchant of his time,
sold to Mark Anthony, saying they were twin
brothers, when, in reality, the one had been
born in Asia and the other in Europe, and there
was not a drop of related blood between them.
Of such was Caius Bibius, Pompey's double;
and the anonymous youth whom the august
Cæsar saw as it had been looking in a mirror, so
exactly like himself was he. Asked slyly by the
Emperor if his mother had ever been to Rome,
the anonymous youth as slyly answered, No, but
his father had been there often. But as this
anecdote is told of various other persons, perhaps
the august Cæsar's living looking-glass is
a mere myth, and never existed at all. There
have been certain historical doubles, though,
about whom there is no doubt, if very much
obscurity. For instance, there was Smerdis the
magian, a Persian counterfeit of royalty, who,
when Cambyses was away in Egypt and just
before he died of that unlucky sword-wound at
Ecbatana, boldly came forward as Smerdis, the
brother—murdered by Cambyses effectually
enough some time before—and who managed so
well, and was so very like the slaughtered prince,
that when the king died he succeeded to the
royal estate and dignities unchallenged. He was
discovered at last by one of the numerous wives
whom he had inherited together with the rolls
of costly stuffs, the vessels of gold and silver,
the apes, and the peacocks, and the rest of the
royal chattels. She, in playful mood, lifting up
his curls, saw—not ass's ears like Midas's, nor
pointed and furry ears like Donatello's—but no
ears. For the knave had lost them, not so very
long before, for some trick unbefitting the magian
calling. So Smerdis the magian came to the
end of his farce; but he was marvellously like
Smerdis the prince, for all that.

Then, there was Antiochus the Great of Syria,
who had his double in one Artemon, whereby his
wife Laodice was enabled to play a trick, and a
very good one for herself; after the great man
was dead, putting Artemon into the royal bed,
and making him commend to the special care of
his nobles and people, his faithful and beloved