satisfied that the apparatus is effective, and
open to few chances of derangement. It
is, of course, not an invention to make
vigilance unnecessary; on the contrary, it
would be a testimonial to the prudence of
all careful drivers, and an inexorable tell-
tale, riding with the negligent. In ninety-
nine cases it would not be necessary; in
the hundredth it would be the saviour of
life and property. It would need being
put in action once a day, to set the index
every morning as the locomotive leaves the
station, and to maintain a constant certainty
that it remains in working order. It would
cost, including signal apparatus fixed upon
the line, from twenty to thirty pounds per
engine. Less complete forms of the
apparatus would cost less. We may add, that
a portable wedge, screwed on the line of rail
at any point, will secure the stoppage of a
train, apart from signal apparatus.

All that we have to say by way of
comment on the matter is, that we, as travellers,
having found out the existence of an invention
which promises to lessen our risk of life
and limb on railway lines, expect that this
invention shall be fairly tested by the railway
companies, and properly adopted if found
good. Small as the risk of railway travelling
may be, it ought to be much smaller; the
occurrence of a preventible accident is, in
plain words, a crime on the part of those who
could have prevented it and did not. If Mr.
Whitworth's plan be good, no Board of
Directors ought to fear the small expense
attendant upon its adoption. The money lost
by calamities on a line, if put against this
outlay, may seem something less; we do not
know how that may be. But, may we be
allowed to hint, that the loss of credit which
follows upon every casualty, is, perhaps, also to
be considered; and that the more or less of
public confidence may not be inoperative on
the value of a railway share?

A ROVING ENGLISHMAN.
                ———
            BENIGHTED.

TRAVEL on foot in a dark night through
a mountain-pass, is not made pleasant by a
sweeping wind, which dashes rain into the
face by the pailful. The most powerful
emotion excited in the human breast under
such circumstances, is a pining after shelter,
though it were but the shelter of a charcoal-
burner's hut; and an inn then seems to be an
institution too completely blissful to be calmly
thought about as something actual and near.
With my hat well pressed over my forehead
to defy the wind; with my clothes containing
a much larger quantity of water than of cloth,
leather, or frieze; with my succulent boots
treading monotonously through the marsh of
the footpath, over which I could just make
out the lowering shadow of the fir-forest, I
plashed along through a mountain-pass in
Austria on an exceedingly wild night in
September. Now and then, I was obliged to
steady myself by planting my staff in the
mud, and standing still with my back to the
gale for a few minutes. Then, on I went, with
heavy measured tread, counting my steps to
wile away the time, miscounting them, and
judiciously beginning a new calculation.

Battle through trouble, and the haven or
rest will be reached at last! Push on through
the darkest night, and at length you will find
an inn. I found, thus, the Inn of the Pass,
its windows all quite dark; the house had
shut its eyes and gone to sleep for the night;
but then it might be easily awakened. The
wooden door, as usual, was wide open, but the
real door of these mountain hostelries, which
keeps intruders out, is not composed of wood,
but of an immense quantity of bark—and bite,
too, possibly. The light slumbers of the
dog having been broken by my footfall, I
waited patiently until his wrath should have
properly fulfilled the uses of a bell and
knocker. Barking and howling on the dog's
part being, however, the accustomed lullaby
of the inmates of the hostelry, the inn
continued to sleep soundly. I could not enter
without losing some portion of my legs, and
therefore proceeded to shout patiently in
chorus with the dog, to throw pebbles against
windows, and at length, when I was quite
hoarse, to stand quiet in the rain,
           " Uncomplaining, hoping, till
                   Clinked the lattice bar,"

and a loud "Who's there?" rewarded the
exertions of myself and my brother chorister.

The dog, satisfied with sounds of explanation,
accosted me thereafter with a conciliatory
growl, and when I groped my way
into the dark room, and stretched myself
upon a bench over which I had previously
tumbled, he resumed his slumbers near my
feet. Mine host, entering with a rude oil-
lamp, looked at me curiously and disappeared,
leaving me in the dark without a syllable of
consolation. A swarm of flies, whose night's
rest I had broken, hummed and buzzed about
me, and I began dreamily to speculate upon
the probable result of sleeping in wet clothes
upon a board, and to wonder whether I should
not feel less draught if I removed my quarters
to the table, and whether there were knives
and forks left there, which might be worse
bed companions than fleas. Over the knife
and fork question I must have fallen asleep,
for I was dreaming of hot roast beef when a
glare of light awakened me, and, looking up,
I saw two damsels, according to the expressive
German idiom, drunk with sleep, who had
been routed out of their beds, and were getting
the table ready for my supper.

From the dream of beef, it was an agreeable
transition to the reality of bread-and-cheese.
The two stout peasant girls, unmistakeably
real, were busily producing wedges of black
bread and an inexhaustible amount of goat-