PARIS TRAIN SMASH.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13269, 3 January 1914, Page 10

PARIS TRAIN SMASH.

Five thousand times a year for many years north and south non-stop .expresses have rushed through Melun at 40 miles an hour, within a few seconds of each other, without accident. On Monday evening (writes a London correspondent) the exception to the rule occurred. A mail train going south, and a passenger train hastening to Paris, met at the intersection of ths lines, and 50 people were mangled and injured. It is a point of honor with French enginedrivers that they shall arrive on time, even though they start three-quarters of an hour late from the point of departure. On Monday evening the north-going train wad slightly behind time. The driver was trying U> catch up. He knew the danger of the cross-road, but he had shot across it hundreds of times without risk. He saw the signals were against him, but h© was still bent upon making Paris to schedule. "I thought I could do it," was the only reason, which he can give for hustling so many people to" early death. Both trains 1 Were ; .almost smashed to splinters; many were killed instantly; still more were slowfy done to death by pain and fire, the" worst torture of all probably being that of a lady, who. was imprisoned m ah attnosphere of scalding steam and suffocating heat beneath the bogie under-car-riage of the giant engine. For eijjht hours she bore the greatest a-gonv Vith supreme fortitude, whilst men frantically Worked for her, rescue. Doctors administered morphia to reduce ' heY sufferings, but human flesh could not stand the strain to which jfhe. wiis subjected. Feeling that her end - was ! "near, the brave soul stripped the jewels from her hands and -gave them to the doctors, entrusting 1 them, w,i,th messages' of . farewell to her "mother and her family. Ten minutes later ,vhe, too, had entered the unknown. . ...