quence is, that the first boat leaving port generally takes all the passengers then ready.

The astonishing increase of travel on the Western waters has been another reason of the indifference of boatmen to the comfort and safety of their passengers, of whom the crowd is occasionally so great, that the existing number of boats, increasing too as they have been with unexampled rapidity, is altogether inadequate, at certain seasons of the year, to their comfortable or safe transportation. When boat after boat leaves port, as is often the case, in the busiest season of the year, with double the number of passengers for which they have suitable accommodations, it is no longer a question with the traveller which boat he will select, but rather how he can get a passage in any.

Again, the great increase of boats renders it impossible to procure for all of them commanders of suitable age and experience; and it is unfortunately too often the case, that property and lives are placed, in this dangerous navigation, under the charge of mere boys in age and intellect. The same cause, in connexion with the increased demand for laborers generally, and more especially in the West, makes it difficult to procure efficient crews. It is of course impossible to enforce the discipline so necessary to safety, when each member of the crew is perfectly aware, that a discharge is at worst but a temporary inconvenience, so many are the situations where he can readily dispose of his services. Such is the demand for pilots and engineers, that their wages are enormous; and a man, skilful, or reputed to be skilful, in either of these characters, can command a better remuneration than frequently rewards the efforts of a man in a learned profession, after devoting many years to his business, and expending much money to qualify him for it. The inevitable result of the rapid and easy acquisition of money by men of coarse habits and uneducated minds, is to produce profligacy and its attendant recklessness; and, though instances can doubtless be pointed out, of men, who under such trying circumstances have, by the practice of sobriety and economy, accumulated property, and become respectable citizens, yet the observation of all those conversant with the subject, will pronounce these to be exceptions to the general rule.

Among the circumstances which tend to the diminution of accidents is the practice, wherever it has been intro

duced, of running boats as regular packets, for short distances, from one important point to another. Several causes may be assigned why this practice should have such a result. Pilots, that are constantly passing over the same space, must of course acquire a more accurate knowledge, not only of the channel of the river, but of the situation of snags and other obstacles, than can be obtained by those whose observation is extended over a space of a thousand or fifteen hundred miles. The business, too, has a stability about it, which renders it more easy to secure the services of a steady crew; and the boats and their engines are more easily kept in thorough repair.

That much more can be done by legislative enactment, than has yet been attempted for the safety of travellers by this mode of conveyance, we verily believe; but it must be by a course of legislation, intelligently adopted, systematically pursued, and rigidly enforced. Without deliberate investigation, all demand for penal restrictions becomes senseless clamor, and compliance with it positively mischievous. Already has the recent act of Congress, become, as to some of its most important provisions, a dead letter; and the defects of the bill are so glaring, and its structure so bungling, that it can be violated with impunity. The boatmen are so numerous, form so powerful a class in all the river towns, and have so long lived uncontrolled, their wandering life rendering them but little amenable to the laws, that it is not to be expected the first attempt to bring them into order and discipline should be entirely successful. State legislation must always be ineffectual, from the impossibility of enforcing laws, where boats are passing so rapidly from one State to another, and frequently from the difficulty of deciding within what especial territory any offence may have been committed. The shocking disasters of the early part of the summer of 1838, namely, the explosion of the Moselle, the General Brown, the Orinoco, and the Pulaski, and the burning of the Washington, were the immediate occasion of the law to which we have just alluded. The Secretary of the Treasury, during the same summer, was collecting information upon the subject of steam-engines generally, in obedience to a resolution of the House of Representatives; and the result has been the presentation of a mass of documents, ill-arranged and undigested, as was perhaps unavoidable, from the haste

with which they were necessarily prepared. With regard to Western boats, the information obtained is singularly meagre. As was to be expected, from the number of people consulted, a great contrariety of opinion has been elicited. That doctors will disagree is here amply exemplified; and the uninstructed reader will seek in vain to settle his faith, among the opposing theories submitted to his consideration. This, we repeat it, is no more than might be expected; an equal diversity of opinion would be made manifest, if as many individuals were catechized upon any vexed question. But, because a correspondent on one page contemns, and deprecates, all legislative interference, and another, on the next, insists upon multiplying enactments, and increasing their penalties, our representatives should not be deterred from investigating the matter thoroughly, and from taking such steps as this investigation may convince them are salutary and right.

Without intending systematically to review the "Act for the better security of the lives of passengers on board of vessels propelled in whole or in part by steam," approved the 7th of July, 1838, we may be allowed to point out some of its most striking defects, and to suggest some additional provisions, the introduction of which, it appears to us, would increase its usefulness.

The first five sections relate principally to the duties and compensation of inspectors, for examining periodically the condition of the hulls and engines of steam-vessels. Now it is perfectly manifest, that no examination, even when made by the most skilful and conscientious, of a vessel lying in port, can detect every imperfection in its construction, or every flaw or defect of its engine; and the services of the skilful and conscientious, the smallness of the compensation will ever make it difficult to secure. A far more effectual provision for the safe construction of boats and engines would be to require, that boat-builders should have each boat inspected during its progress, by an authorized inspector; to establish some test to which each boiler should be subjected before putting it in use; and then to exact, that one of the safety-valves (for every boat should be furnished with two) should be loaded with a specified weight, and placed beyond the control of the engineer. Any tampering with, or alteration of, this regulating valve should be prohib

ited under the heaviest penalties. This provision would supersede Section seventh, requiring the safety-valve to be raised upon every occasion of the boat's stopping her engine, which, as it stands at present, is positively mischievous, and would, if obeyed, be frequently productive of the very accident it is intended to prevent. Its absurdity, from the first, caused it to be utterly disregarded.

Section ninth requires all steamboats to use iron rods, or chains, in the place of tiller ropes. A recent judicial opinion, however, has decided, that this provision of the law does not reach the boats navigating our Western waters. As clumsy as may be the construction of this section, we think this decision a palpable perversion of its meaning. Certain it is, that it never received a moment's obedience, even before judicial ingenuity pronounced it inoperative. It is very generally urged by the steamboat interest, that the adoption of these chains or rods would render boats less manageable, and their navigation consequently in narrow or intricate channels more hazardous. Their great security in case of fire, should render our lawgivers cautious in entertaining these objections; but, in case they should be found to be valid, a spare tiller, kept always at hand, to fit into the rudder post, which should extend through the upper or hurricane deck, would be found a great protection. A recent invention, however, the wire rope, would seem to do away with all objections, founded upon their unmanageableness, to metallic steering ropes. We have seen these wire ropes in use, as pliable as hemp, and yet pronounced to be as incombustible as a bulky chain. At any rate, whatever precautions against fire, whether in the surveying of buckets filled with water, a fireengine, or hose, or any other, (except, perhaps, requiring them to be provided with an extra number of small boats,) are exacted of lake or sea-going boats, should be extended in terms, clear, beyond the possibility of legal quibbling, to boats navigating the Western rivers.

By Section tenth, boats running during the night are compelled to carry, in some conspicuous part, at least one signal light. It is obvious, that one light, suspended above a boat, can give no precise information as to the course she may be steering; and it is the difficulty of ascertaining this, as has been already observed, which occasions such frequent collisions. If instead of one signal light, suspended at random

about the boat, it were required, that two lights of different specified colors should be displayed, the one above the bow, and the other at the stern, the pilot of each boat could tell at a glance the course and bearings of the other, and regulate himself accordingly.

The latter sections of the act provide for the punishment of neglect, or carelessness, upon the information of those aggrieved. Now we would suggest, that, instead of leaving it to the sufferers to prosecute, (a step that many causes may prevent them from taking; for instance, poverty, ignorance, want of friends, and unwillingness to lose the time it would consume, or dread of incurring responsibility;) it should be made the duty of the surveyor, collector of the port, steamboat inspector, or other suitable officer, within a certain distance of whose post any accident shall happen, to repair at once to the spot, taking with him a specified number of respectable citizens, who should be sworn to inspect and examine faithfully and impartially; all of whom should be well paid for their services. And their report it should be the duty of the officer to dispose of in some summary way, either by submitting it to the grand jury, if it be then in session, or to one or more magistrates, who should be required to receive the same, and, if recommended by the examiners, either commit for trial the offenders, or hold them to bail, to answer the charge which it should still be made the duty of the presiding officer in the district to prefer, at the first competent court thereafter to be holden. Yet it may well be asked, after all, How can the dread of legal penalties cause any additional vigilance in an officer, who knows that his own life will almost inevitably pay the immediate penalty of his negligence? The engineer on duty at the time of any catastrophe is almost without exception the first victim; and all the officers of the boat, whether on or off duty, occupy the most exposed situations. Ignorance, therefore, we may fairly conclude, more often than negligence, is the cause of these accidents. And how can it be otherwise, than that, among the thousand or fifteen hundred uneducated men, who have charge of engines on these waters, there should be many who know nothing, or next to nothing, about the nature and properties of the mysterious and powerful agent, which is as yet in some respects an enigma even to the learned. The law which is prompt to punish, it may well be said