STREET ACCIDENTS IN LONDON.

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1661, 19 August 1873, Page 4

STREET ACCIDENTS IN LONDON.

Tee Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Kingdom (Part VIII.) just issued," says .the Pall Mall Gazette, "contain among other things a return of the number of street accidents in the metropolitan police district in each year from 1366 to 1870, which ought to bring home to the hearts of pedestrians the uncertainty of human life. From this return it appears that during the period referred to there were no fewer than 533 persons killed and 7494 persons maimed or injured in the streets by vehicles and horses. .Thisghastly list is made upas follows: —Cabs killed 59 and wound 1720 human creatureß, omnibuses killed 39 and wounded 363, broughams and carnages killed 20 and wounded. 988, light cafes killed 142 and wounded 2667, waggons and drays killed 83 and wounded 312, vans killed 113 and wounded 890, fire engines killed 1 and wounded 19, horses ridden killed 10 and wounded 153, heavy carts killed 65 and wounded 378, and velocipedes (of which it is only fair to say in excuse for the comparatively poor figure they cut in the butcher's bill that they hardly came into general uae. before 1869-70) killed 1 and wounded 4. Putting the killed and wounded together, we liavo the respectable number of 8027 persons placed hors de combat by our formidable street cavalry in five years. It is perhaps an invidious task to select the drivers of any one class of vehicle, as being foremost in. the. ranks of slaughter, but it is impossible not to observe that the light-cart drivers show an indifference to danger and a recklessness of the lives of others which are almost sublime. That these'men should have injured or destroyed 2809 quiet Londoners in five short years is, to say. .the least, a remarkable sign of the times, we live in; That they should have been permitted to do so speaks volumes as to the' admirable nature of our arrangements." . ..