which they had said two years before must be rebuilt the coming spring, and which relied entirely upon a trestle liable at any time to be carried away, had suddenly become "safe for the present," is not plain to see.

Evidently such inspection as this is of no value. It is exactly this utterly incompetent and dishonest inspection, this guessing that a bridge will stand until it falls, that lies at the bottom of half the disasters in the country. It is under exactly such inspection that those wretched traps, the Ashtabula and Tariffville bridges, fell, and killed over one hundred people. No wonder that railroad officials have an undisguised contempt for State inspection. While in a few States the inspection is not quite so bad as that referred to, as a general thing it is no better; and we have no right to expect any thing better under the present system. The State inspection which we have had throughout this country has not prevented the breaking down of one hundred bridges in the past ten years. Twenty-five States have railroad commissions; but in nine of them the commission consists of only a single man, who, in some cases, is paid only $500 a year. A State can pay $500 a year for having its bridges inspected, and it will get such service as never did and never will prevent a disaster; or it can pay a good price for competent inspection, which will be worth ten times the money to the State. The money which the Lake Shore Railroad paid in damages for the Ashtabula disaster alone, would have employed permanently six men at $5,000 a year each, and a hundred lives would have been saved besides.

With regard to highway bridges, we are, if possible, even worse off than in regard to railway bridges; for in the case of such structures, neither the owners nor the State make any pretence at inspection. It is impossible to say how many highway bridges have broken down during the past ten years, but it is estimated by bridge-builders that the number cannot be less than two hundred. This is, no doubt, far within the truth; and by far the larger part of these structures are not old wooden bridges, but are new bridges of iron.

If we knew positively that in just six months a terrible disaster would occur under the present system of bridge inspection, and knew also, that, by a better system, such disaster would certainly be prevented, it is possible that a change might be made. We know that a proper method of building and inspecting bridges would certainly have prevented the disasters at Ashtabula, Tariffville, and Dixon. We know that the inspection which those bridges received, did not prevent three of the most fearful disasters the country has ever seen. Admitting, now, that structures so important to the public safety as bridges, both upon roads and railroads, ought to be kept under rigid inspection and control, and that no system at present existing has been able to prevent the most fearful catastrophes, what shall we do? Directly after the Ashtabula disaster, the Ohio legislative committee, appointed to investigate that affair, presented to the Legislature a bill, "To secure greater safety for public travel over bridges," in which was plainly specified the loads for which all bridges should be proportioned, the maximum strains to which the iron should be subjected, and a method for inspecting the plans of all bridges before building, and the bridges themselves during and after construction. The governor, with the consent of the Senate, was to appoint the inspector for a term of five years at a salary not exceeding $3,000 a year, such inspector to pass a satisfactory examination before a committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, themselves practical experts in bridge construction, and he was also to take a suitable oath for the faithful performance of his duty. This bill never became a law. An appropriation was made for a short time to pay for certain examinations, and there the matter stopped.

The committee of the American Society of Engineers were not agreed upon this matter. Messrs. James B. Eads and Charles Shaler Smith suggested the appointment in each State of an expert, to whom all plans should be submitted, and by whom all work should be inspected,—such expert to have been examined and approved by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The inspector was also to visit the scene of every accident, so called, and to ascertain, as far as possible, the cause. Messrs. T. C. Clarke and Julius W. Adams believed, that, in the present state of public opinion, the above method would be impracticable, and feared, that, if inspectors were appointed, it would be by political influence, and that the result would be worse than at present, as the inspectors would be inefficient, and yet, to a great extent, would relieve the owners of bad bridges from legal responsibility. They held that the best that could be done would be to provide means, in case of disaster, to fix plainly the responsibility, and recommended, First, that the standard for strength fixed by the Society should be the legal standard; and, in case it should be found that any bridge was of less strength than this, it should be taken as prima facie evidence of neglect on the part of the owners. Second, that no bridge should be opened to the public until a plan giving all dimensions, strains, and loads, sworn to by the designers and makers, and attested by the corporation having control of it, had been deposited with the American Society; and further, that the principal pieces of iron in the bridge should be stamped with the name of the maker, place of manufacture, and date. Messrs. A. P. Boller and Charles Macdonald looked rather toward effecting the desired result by so directing public sentiment by keeping the correct standard for bridges before it, that it would eventually compel the passage of the necessary laws.

Whether it is possible, in this country, to make an appointment dependent purely upon honesty and capacity, and free from political influence, may well be doubted. No competent engineer would be willing to accept a position which would place upon him so great a responsibility, except under a very carefully devised plan. A very considerable force of inspectors would be required to carry out a system which should produce the desired result. The amount of work to be done at the commencement would be very great, as no proper inspection has ever been made of the greater part of the bridges in the country, of which the number is very large. If any such plan as above suggested should be found feasible, the inspectors should have in their possession a complete set of plans of every bridge of importance in the State, with all the computations of its strength, and as complete a history of each structure from its commencement as can be made up, all this to be supplemented by periodic examinations. If, from such records, we find that a bridge was made of ordinary green timber twenty-five years ago, and that it has been getting rotten ever since; that it has rods of common merchant iron that were bought by some person, not specially acquainted with the business, from an unknown firm,—we had better pull it down before it falls. If, from such records, we find an iron bridge built twenty-five years ago by an unknown company, with iron, at best, of a doubtful quality, and having a factor of three or four for the rolling-stock and speeds of twenty years ago, instead of a factor of six for the rolling-stock and speeds of to-day, we had better remove that bridge before it removes itself.