BRIDE'S TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 271, 13 November 1909, Page 17

BRIDE'S TRAGEDY.

END OF 30 YEARS OF SUFFERING. The blinds of a quiet little house In (H/itehin were drawn, says the London "Daily Mnil" of Sept. 20th, and the neighbours learned that Mrs Burbriflce, the occupant, was dead. For thirty years a helpless invalid, she had never crossed the threshold of her house or, indeed, left the room to which she was carried in 1879. During all those years the only person who has seen her were her faithful attendants, her medical men, and a few relatives who visited her from time to time. Her death is the epilogue of a forgotten Christmas tragedy, arising out of a railway accident which occurred on the night of December 23, 1876, when the Manchester express crashed Into a goods train at Arlsey siding station (now the three Counties Station) on the Great Northern Railway, near Hitchlh. Five lives were lost, and among the seriously lajured were Mr and Mrs Burbrldge. A bride in the early twenties, Mrs Burbridge was n passenger in the train with her husband. They were on the way to ■Nottingham to spend Christmas with their relatives. Husband and wife Were able to speak after being dragged out of the wreckage, and bade farewell to each other as they lay on the platform, Mr Burbrldge was taken to the Three Counties Asylum, where he lingered a few weeks. Hie wife, suffering, from a fracture of the spine and pelvic bones, was carried t5 the Lamb Inn near by. Five medical men examined her nhd declared that she could only live a few days Three years iater she wag still to be found nt the Lamb Inn. Her family then decided that she should be moved by slow stages to Nottingham. Hltchln was the first stage, and the Intention was that the injured lady should lest for a few days at the little house in Hltchln - where she died. But so great hnd been the agony of the journey_that all thought of taking the Invalid to Nottingham had to be abandoned. House and furniture were taken over from the occupants, and there Mrs Burbrldge has lived until death closed her life of suffering. Morbidly sensitive regarding her injured state, always suffering, she shrank from visitors, and the little house with the garden of flowers and neat white-curtained >wlndowe had few (-.alters. Neighbours left the finest flowers from their gardens nt the door of the lady whom they hail never seen.