A Terrible Tale.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 305, 22 December 1894, Page 3 (Supplement)

A Terrible Tale.

Skvebal gentlemen, sitting together in the smoking compartment of a Pullman car, fell to relating their experiences in railroad accidents. Four or five adventures of the sorb had been related, when an Englisman in the party declared thab all these Rtories were as nothing compared with a railway tragedy in hia own country, of which hQ had been an unwilling spectator. Of coureo he was at once called upon to tell the story.

'Five years ago,' the Englishmen said, ' I took the six o'clock trim one morning from Bristol to go to a town about twenty miles distant. It was a local branch road. Aa you are no doubt aware, the English locomotives aro nob furnished with the comfortabje cabs for engineer and fireman —or as we call them, the driver and the stoker—as yours are. Those two persons are practically oufc-of-doors.

' Our train had gone on without incident for some miles, when I, who was in one of the foremost carriages, hoard ioud voices, apparently of persons in a violent quarrel, 6omewbere in front of me. I pub my head oub of the carriage window, and saw thab the engine-driver and etoker were engaged in a fight on the engine. ■ ' Their angry words became fewer and fewer as their blows rained thicker and thicker upon each other. Finally they clutched in a desperate .struggle. The driver seemed to be engaged ;in an attempt to force tho stoker off the engine. .

• I shouted to the guard, but he was out of hearing, in the after-part of the train. Nearer and nearer the two desperate men came to the step of the engine. The driver gave his antagonist a desperate push, the stoker saw tbafc he was gone, but clung to the driver. A last terrible struggle, and over both went to tho ground.

lThi3 left the engine entirely unattended. Evidently the steam had been lefb fully turned on, for the brain began to rußh forward at an increasing rate of speed. On and on we went aba pace which became terrible. No ono could get to tho locomotive, nnd no one knew how to handle ib if he could have got there,

'We whizzed pasb a slation where we should have stopped, and caught glimpses of astonished faces iooking nb us. Pasb another station — pasb a bhird — pasb a fourth, on wo whirled at an even swifter speed. ' Then we all knew fchab the nexb station was a terminus. When we reached thab we should be hurled against a butler, and bhe train would be wrecked. Wbab was to be done?

• Nobbing was done. We plunged on and on. The terminus came into view. Ib came nearer and nearer, seeming to bulge swiftly into greater size as we bore down upon it. In a moment more ' Tho door of the smoking compartment opened, and the porter called out 'Albany !' ' Good-day, gentlemen,1 said the Englishman, getting up quickly. ' Sorry, but this is my station.' He disappeared, and the others in the Btnoking compartment never heard how the story came oub.