ARRIVAL OF THE GALIFORNIAN MAIL.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1492, 21 November 1874, Page 6 (Supplement)

ARRIVAL OF THE GALIFORNIAN MAIL.

The A.S.N. Company's steamer City of Melbourne, with, the Californian mail, arrived at Sydney oa the 9th,. three days before time. She made the passage in six days and four hours from Kandavu. Passengers: Madame Anna Bishop, Miss Colville, Mr and Mrs Darrell, Mr and Mrs Douglas, Mr and Mrs Christopher, Miss BrodzeaV; Messsrs Schultz, Hoskins, Phelan Orkney, Haig, Dennis, J. Dennis, Bushby, Goodfellow, Morley, Woolfe, Reeves, MacCarthy, and 31 in the steerage. I The cargo consists of 1460 cases salmon, 197 packages dried apples, 1 case salmon ova 1751 mats .sugar and sundries. We have oar files of English papers to September 22ad, and American to 12 oh October, (containing European Telegraphic News to the 9th), from which we make the following extracts :— THK COURT. Her Majesty, accompanied by the Duchess of Edinburgh and the Princess Beatrice, attended divine service in Crathie parish church on Sunday, Septemoer 13. Lord and Lady Derby and a large numbar of strangers were present. The Rev. Dr. Macgregor, of St. Cathbert's, Edinburgh, preached.

It is stated that the photograph of the Princess of Wales, in which she is carrying one of her children on her back, is so great a favourite that no fewer than 300,000 copies of it have been sold. Various reports have lately appeared in print to the effect that debts have been contracted by the Pi'ince of Wales. It has been stated that Mr. Gladstone was requested to bring the matter before Parliament, but declined ; that Mr. Disraeli was to be asked to do so ; and, finally, that Her Majesty had paid off these amounts. Mr. P. A. Taylor, the member for Leicester, has even addressed *his constituents on the subject. It is now authoritively asserted that there is not a single word of truth in any of these statements. The Marquis of Lome has been lecturing at Tobermory to a local mutual improvement society in the Baptist Chapel on the Spanish Armada. 'Che Princess Louise was not able to be present, but at the close of the lecture cheers were given for her as well as for the Marquis. DREADFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.— UPWARDS OF 80 PERSONS KILLED AND INJURED. The entire chapter of railway accidents, to which additions have of lat? years being frightfully numerous, has no parallel to this Great Eastern Railway colli-ion near Norwich. The coroner who is ho:dmsj his inquest on th<j 22 victims suggests that it cannot be called an accident ; but a catastrophe, though a lapse of memory is quite as distinctly an acei'ieut as one proceeding from a mere mechanical failure. Tho terrible story is, indeed, exactly correct as ab first to d, though it required very precise details to convince people that it could really be so. An express train from London was started late in the evening from Norwich, on a single line of rails, towards Brundall. on the Lowesroft line, by the same official who had two minutes telegraphed for the mail train to come on from Brundall to Norwich. The trains met when they had acquired a collective speed of some fifty miles an hour. Darkness and a curve prevented even warning sufficient to turn off steam, and the result was an awful wreck, with more j than a score of persons killed or I fatally hurt, and about three score in- j jured, many very severely. Cooper, tho un- j fortunate official who was the immediate cause of the disaster, admitted his frightful mistake before the trains met. It seems that the piece of line whew slaughter took place had been for thirty years WOi ked safely, and that to meet increasing traffic a second line of rails hid been laid, and was nearly ready for the Government inspector, so that in a few weeks the accident could not have happened. The traffic upon this piece of line was not sufficiently reguar both ways to adopt what is known as the " staff system." Hence it had been a custom for the mail to wait at Brundall until the express passed, or unless specially telegraphed for. On the fatal night of September 11, the express being late Cooper, the night inspector at Norwich, gave a written though unsigned message to the telegraph clerk to signal the mail train on. This was done, and almost directly after the same inspectoi started the express. It 3 last carriage was not out of the station before he remembered the awful mistake he had made. He called to the telegraph clerk to si^nil "Stop mail," and received the immediate answer from the alarmed atotionmaater at Brundall, " Mail gone ;" and the officials at both stations, in an indescribable state of frenzy, paepared for the wreck, which they knew could only be miraculously avoided. The trains met with a crash which gave its own alarm, and brought help from the village of Thorpe. Fires were lighted, the dead removed, and the injured cut out in some cases from the pile which tho two trains made. Very many of the killed and injured were of a class in society to whom compensation will have to be heavy to be adequate, and the company's stock suffers a considerable fall.

To add to the horror of the situation, five or six carriages of the down train remained upon the bridge crossing the river ; and as this bridge was undergoing alteration, the sides were quite unprotected. The passengers in these carriages wei'e almost wild wiih fe-ir, for every light had been put out They did not know what had. happened, and their screams added to the dreadful confusion of the hour. They were entreated to keep their seats, but it was against human nature to do so. It is miraculous that some did not fall into the* stream One man did fall in, and was pulled out. But it is not thought certain that some deaths have not occurred from drowning. The river has been dragged in this belief. Mr Slade, being at first unknown, a photograph was taken of his body for the purpose of identification, and he must have died with a smile upon his face. . The statement of Dr Pitt as to the position in which he found Mr White is of a very painful character. This unfortunate gentleman was jammed beneath a railway carriage, and lay like a man in a coffin upside down. He was in this condition three hours and a half. In order to sustain him in his agonising position, and to prevent him from fainting, Dr Pitt, Captain Douglas, and Mr 0. Forster contrived to supply him with brandy soaked in a hankerchief, whi-h, being placed upon the end of a stick, they managed to slide up to his mouth, and induced him to suck. By this means only he was sustained till his liberation was effected.

The following were either found dead or expired shortly afterwards :—John Prior, driver of the up train ; James Light, fireman of the up train ; Thomas Clark, driver of the down train ; Frederick Sewell, fireman of the down train; George Page, Wensumstreet, Norwich, leather-seller ; G. R. Womack, Dove-street, Norwich, clothier ; Eev. H. Stacey, 12, Upper St. Giles-street, Norwich formerly of Beecles, independent minister; Mrs Stacey, wife of the Rev. Henry Stacey ; Mrs Betts, wife of Betts the stoker ; an in^ fant child of Beets ; sergeant-major Cassell, West Norfolk Militia staff; sergeant Ward, ditto; Susan Lincoln, housemaid to Mr Hoyte, Norwick; H. S- Turner, confectioner Lower Goat-lane, Norwich ; Miss Mary Ann Murray, Mariner's lane, Norwich ; Mrs Gilding, Graf ton street, Mile End, wife of an insurance agent; Laura Gilding daughter of Mrs Gilding ; Mr R. W. Skinne, Norwich, gentleman ; Mrs Taylor, forewoman at Mr Caley's, draper, Norwich; Mr Upton, of Yarmouth, harness - maker; and Mr Slade, of the firm of Akerman and Slade, of 8, Regent-sfcreet. To this list has to be added the names of Susan Brown, who died on Wednesday, and the .stoker Betts.