NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I find an excellent illustration of the state of modern roads, ‘not blamed for blood,’ in the following “Month’s List of Killed and Wounded,” from the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’:—
“We have before us a task at once monotonous, painful, and revolting. It is to record, for the benefit of the public, the monthly list of slaughter by rail, for the last four weeks unprecedented in degree and variety. In August there were three ‘accidents,’ so called, for every five days. In the thirty days of September there have been in all thirty-six. We need not explain the dreary monotony of this work. Every newspaper reader understands that for himself. It is also painful, because we are all more or less concerned, either as travellers, shareholders, or workers on railways; and it is grievous to behold enormous sums of money thrown away at random in compensation for loss of life and limb, in making good the damage done to plant and stock, in costly law litigation, and all for the sake of what is called economy. It is, moreover, a just source of indignation to the tax-payer to reflect that he is compelled to contribute to maintain a costly staff of Government inspectors (let alone the salaries of the Board of Trade), and that for any practical result of the investigations and reports of these gentlemen, their scientific knowledge and ‘urgent recommendations,’ they might as well be men living in the moon. It is revolting because it discloses a miserable greed, and an entire callousness of conscience on the part of railway directors, railway companies, and the railway interest alike, and in the Government and Legislature a most unworthy and unwise cowardice. It is true that the situation may be accounted for by the circumstance that there are between one and two hundred railway directors in the House of Commons who uniformly band together, but that explanation does not improve the fact.
Sept. 2.—North-Eastern Railway, near Hartlepool. Passenger train got off the line; three men killed, several injured. Cause, a defective wheel packed with sheet iron. The driver had been recently fined for driving too slowly.
Sept. 5.—Great Western. A goods train ran into a number of beasts, and then came into collision with another goods train.
Sept. 6.—Line from Helensburgh to Glasgow. A third-class carriage got on fire. No communication between passengers and guard. The former got through the windows as best they could, and were found lying about the line, six of them badly injured.
Sept. 8.—A train appeared quite unexpectedly on the line between. Tamworth and Rugby. One woman run over and killed.
Sept. 9.—Cannon Street. Two carriages jumped off the line; traffic much delayed.
Sept. 9.—Near Guildford. A bullock leaped over a low gate on to the line; seven carriages were turned over the embankment and shivered to splinters; three passengers were killed on the spot, suffocated or jammed to death; about fifteen were injured.
Sept. 10.—London and North-Western, at Watford. Passenger train left the rails where the points are placed, and one carriage was overturned; several persons injured, and many severely shaken.
Sept. 10.—Great Northern, at Ardsley. Some empty carriages were put unsecured on an incline, and ran into the Scotch express; three carriages smashed, several passengers injured, and driver, stoker, and guard badly shaken.
Sept. 11.—Great Eastern, near Sawbridgeworth. A goods train, to which was attached a waggon inscribed as defective and marked for repair, was proceeding on the up line; the waggon broke down, and caught a heavy passenger train on the down line: one side of this train was battered to pieces; many passengers severely shaken and cut with broken glass.
Sept. 12.—East Lancashire, near Bury. A collision between two goods trains. Both lines blocked and waggons smashed. One driver was very badly hurt.
Sept. 13.—London, Chatham, and Dover, near Birchington station. Passenger train drove over a number of oxen; engine was thrown off the line; driver terribly bruised; passengers severely shaken. Cause, the animals got loose while being driven over a level crossing, and no danger signals were hoisted.
Sept. 15.—Caledonian line, near Glasgow. Passenger train ran into a mineral train which had been left planted on the line; one woman not expected to survive, thirteen passengers severely injured. Cause, gross negligence.
Same day, and same line.—Caledonian goods train was run into broadside by a North British train; great damage done; the guard was seriously injured. Cause, defective signalling.
Sept. 16.—Near Birmingham. A passenger train, while passing over some points, got partly off the line; no one severely hurt, but all shaken and frightened. Cause, defective working of points.
Sept. 17.—Between Preston and Liverpool, near Houghton. The express train from Blackburn ran into a luggage train which was in course of being shunted, it being perfectly well known that the express was overdue. About twenty passengers were hurt, or severely shaken and alarmed, but no one was actually killed. Cause, gross negligence, want of punctuality, and too much traffic.
Same day.—Great Eastern. Points not being closed, a cattle train left the metal and ploughed up the line, causing much damage and delay in traffic. Cause, negligence.
Same day.—Oxford and Bletchley Railway. Axle-wheel of waggon broke, and with seven trucks left the line. A general smash ensued; broken carriages were strewed all over the line, and a telegraph post was knocked down: blockage for four hours. Cause, defective axle.
Same day.—A goods train from Bolton to Manchester started so laden as to project over the other line for the down traffic. Encountering the express from Manchester near Stone Clough, every passenger carriage was in succession struck and injured. Cause, gross negligence of porters, station-master, and guard of goods train.
“Here, it will be observed, we have already got eighteen catastrophes within seventeen days. On September 18 and 19 there was a lull, followed by an appalling outbreak.
Sept. 20.—At the Bristol terminus, where the points of the Midland and Great Western meet, a mail train of the former ran full into a passenger train belonging to the latter. As they were not at full speed, no one was killed, but much damage was done. Cause, want of punctuality and gross negligence. Under a system where the trains of two large companies have a junction in common and habitually cross each other many times a day, the block system seems impossible in practice.
Same day.—Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln line. A passenger train was unhooked from the engine at Peninstone, and ran down the incline at a fearful rate. A signalman, seeing something wrong, and naturally confused, turned it on to the Sheffield line. At Wortley it encountered a goods train laden with pig-iron. Smash in every direction, carriages and trucks mounting one on the top of the other. Fortunately there were only three passengers; but all were seriously injured. Cause, gross negligence.
Sept. 22.—Midland Railway, near Kettering. A train ran off the line; metals torn up; traffic delayed for two hours.
Same day.—Passenger train from Chester was descending the tunnel under Birkenhead; the engine ran off the line and dashed against the tunnel wall. Passengers much shaken, but not seriously maimed. Traffic stopped for several hours.
Sept. 23.—A lull.
Sept. 24.—North British Railway, at Reston Junction. The early express train which leaves Berwick for Edinburgh at 4.30 a.m. was going at full speed, all signals being at safety, but struck a waggon which was left standing a little on the main line over a siding; engine damaged, and the panels and foot-boards of ten carriages knocked to bits; no loss of life. Cause, gross negligence.
Sept. 25.—A Midland excursion train from Leicester got off the line near New Street station; the van was thrown across both lines of rails; great damage and delay. Cause, over-used metal.
Same day.—London and North-Western, between Greenfield and Moseley. A bundle of cotton which had fallen from a train pulled one waggon off the line; twenty other waggons followed it, and the line was ploughed up for two hundred yards; great damage, delay, and many waggons smashed: no loss of life. Cause, negligence.
Same day.—Great Eastern, St. Ives. Through carelessness a pointsman ran a Midland passenger train into a siding on to some trucks; passengers badly shaken, and a good many had their teeth knocked out. The account stated naïvely, “No passengers were seriously hurt, but they were nevertheless very much alarmed, and fled the carriages in the greatest state of excitement.” Cause, gross negligence.
Same day.—South Yorkshire, near Conisbro’. A mineral train (signals being all right) dashed full into a heavy coal train. Much damage, but no loss of life. Cause, gross negligence and over-traffic.
Sept. 26.—This was a very fatal day. At Sykes Junction, near Retford, the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln joins the Great Northern. A coal train of the latter while passing the junction was run into at full speed by a cattle train of the former. The engine and fifteen carriages were thrown down the bank and smashed, and valuable cattle killed. Meanwhile a goods train drew up, the signal being for once at danger, and was immediately run into by a mineral train from behind, which had not been warned. Drivers, guards, firemen injured. A fog was on at the time, but no fog signals appear to have been used. Cause, negligence and over-traffic.
Same day.—North-Eastern passenger train from Stockton to Harrowgate ran into a heavy goods train near Arthington. The crash was fearful. About twenty passengers were injured; half that number very seriously. The signals contradicted each other. Cause, gross negligence.
Same day.—North-Eastern, Newcastle and Carlisle division. There was a collision between a mineral and a cattle train on a bridge of the river Eden more than 100 feet high. Part of the bridge was hurled down below; several waggons followed it, while others remained suspended. Cattle were killed; three men badly injured. Cause, gross negligence.
Same day.—Near Carnarvon. A passenger train ran over a porter’s lorry which had been left on the line; no one was injured, but damage ensued; passengers had fortunately alighted. Cause, negligence.
Same day.—Great Eastern. A train of empty carriages was turned on to a siding at Fakenham, and came into collision with laden trucks, which in their turn were driven into a platform wall; much damage done, but no personal injury. Cause, gross negligence.
Sept. 27.—The Holyhead mail due at Crewe at 5.30 was half an hour late; left standing on a curve, it was run into by a goods train; a number of carriages were smashed, and though no one was killed, nearly fifty persons were injured. The signals were against the goods train, but the morning being hazy the driver did not see them. Cause, negligence, unpunctuality, and want of fog signals.
Sept. 28.—South Devon Line, near Plymouth. A luggage train was set on fire, and a van laden with valuable furniture completely consumed.
Sept. 30.—The London and Glasgow express came up at full speed near Motherwell Junction, and dashed into a van which was being shunted on the main line; the engine was thrown down an embankment of thirty feet, and but for the accident of the coupling-iron breaking the whole train would have followed it. The fireman was crushed to death, the driver badly injured, and many passengers severely shaken. Cause, criminal recklessness in shunting van when an express is due.
Sept. 30.—Great Western. Collision at Uffington between a fish and luggage train; no loss of life, but engine shattered, traffic delayed, and damage done. Cause, negligence.
“Besides the above, two express trains had a very narrow escape from serious collision on September 13 and September 26, the one being near Beverley station, and the other on the Great Western, between Oxford and Didcot. Both were within an ace of running into luggage vans which had got off the lines. It will be observed that in this dismal list there is hardly one which can properly be called an accident, i.e., non-essential to the existing condition of things, not to be foreseen or prevented, occurring by chance, which means being caused by our ignorance of laws which we have no means of ascertaining. The reverse is the true state of the case: the real accidents would have been if the catastrophes in question had not occurred.”
A correspondent, who very properly asks, “Should we not straightway send more missionaries to the Kaffirs?” sends me the following extracts from the papers of this month. I have no time to comment on them. The only conclusion which Mr. Dickens would have drawn from them, would have been that nobody should have been hanged at Kirkdale; the conclusion the public will draw from them will doubtless be, as suggested by my correspondent, the propriety of sending more missionaries to the Kaffirs, with plenty of steam-engines.
JUVENILE DEPRAVITY.
Yesterday, a lad named Joseph Frieman, eleven years of age, was charged before the Liverpool magistrates with cutting and wounding his brother, a child six years old. It appeared that on Saturday, during the absence of their mother, the prisoner threw the little fellow down and wounded him with a knife in a frightful manner, and on the return of the mother she found the lad lying in great agony and bleeding profusely. In reply to her questions the prisoner said that his brother “had broken a plate, and the knife slipped.” The woman stated that the prisoner was an incorrigible boy at home, and stole everything he could lay his hands on. A few weeks ago, about the time of the recent execution at Kirkdale, he suspended his little sister with a rope from the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, nearly causing death. The prisoner was remanded for a week, as the injured boy lies in a very dangerous state.
SHOCKING PARRICIDE IN HALIFAX.
A man, named Andrew Costello, 86, died in Halifax yesterday, from injuries committed on him by his daughter, a mill hand. She struck him on Monday with a rolling-pin, and on the following day tore his tongue out at the root at one side. He died in the workhouse, of lockjaw.
1 I have long since expressed these facts in my ‘Ethics of the Dust,’ but too metaphorically. “The way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said) over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground: what fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and that nothing else is.” ↑
3 If you don’t know your Scott properly, it is of no use to give you references. ↑
4 “Dicimus, et stabilito tenore firmamus, amorem non posse, inter duos jugales, suas extendere vires.” ↑
5 He meant the Bible; having learned Evangelical views at the massacre of St. Bartholomew. ↑
6 For the present, the daughters seem to take the initiative. See story from Halifax in the last terminal Note. ↑
FORS CLAVIGERA.
