A SCENE AT PADDINGTON RAILWAY STATION.

Press, Volume III, Issue 336, 27 November 1863, Page 3

A SCENE AT PADDINGTON RAILWAY STATION.

[From the Globe. - ]

We gave yesterday an account of the fight which took place on Tuesday, but tho sceno at Paddiugton station in the morning appears to deserve a separate description, there having been a more thau customary amount of violence. A witness of the scene writes :—

Tho exit side of t!ic station was barricaded with a number of the company's vans, evidently to prevent a forcible entry. From two o'clock the departure eide was taken possession of by large numbers of persons palpably anxious to get into the special train at all hazards. Wo mingled with this waiting throng, which we found somewhat variously composed. In front of tho only door in use were assembled nearly a dozen men in the uniform of the Great Western Railway Company. The efibrti of these persons to preserve an entrance to the railway station for the favoured ticket-holders would here been utterly powerless but for on organised gang of pugilistic special constables.

These fellows, with foreheads "villainously low," formed a sort of lane by the aid of 6trong oaken cudgels, with which they frequently enforced their appeals to stand back. Nothing, we believe, has ever been seen, even at a London execution, approaching in lawless violence to the scene wir. nessed on the premises of Iho Great Western Railway Company early this day. Some 14 very large carriages were filled by the pugilistic excursionists, to the number of fully 500. They reached the station in cabs, and in such numbers from midnight till 4 o'clock that a police officer assured us he never remembered to havo seen co many cabs at once in his lifetime.

The waiting crowd were mostly onlookers, without means for the coTeted voynge and exhibition, but that a portion were " something more" what ensued will best prove. Finding that the approaches to the train were too well guarded by tho servants of the company and the organized band of pugilists, a portion of* the vagabonds turned their attention to any person who had entered their dangerous purlieus alone or well-dressed. We know of four diflerent cabs that were set upou immediately on their arrival in the etation-yord and their riders summarily robbed of everything.

There were no police present for the first two or three hours, the enclosure being tho property of the Great Western Bail way. As the time of departure drew near some of the fellows grew terribly reckless and anxious to get away. The cries of ngony raised by those who were7 assau h , *d and robbed were answered by mocking laughter. In one a tall man was surrounded and savagely beaten, robbed of his watch and all the money ho had in his pockets; yet he was a person who, under all ordinary circumstances, was well able to take care of hinieclf in any part of London.

A little before four o'clock the crowd was etnrf led by eomo most unearthly groa.is, evidently proceeding from a human being in deadly agony. Wβ found them to proceed from a well dreewed young fellow, who hnd been surrounded, violently and "scientifically" struck in ilio stomach, and robbed of everything. When attacked, and while so abused, ho was forced against the glazed advertisements ou the wall, which were smashed in the struggle, and his person much endangered by the broken glass. So much unbridled violence wo never beforo witnessed in so short a spaco of time.

Shortly before the train started the Metropolitan police appeared on the scene, but even then we saw a man robbed of hie scarf pin. On being appealed to to give the thief into custody the man replied lie did not care to prosecute, his only anxiety being to get off to tho fight. We bcliovo several persons who had taken or intended to take tickets were left behind. Tho violent struggle* of the poorer ruffians to reach the train seemed at last to overawe the promoters of the exhibition. The excitement was fearful, and the hist efforts to get off proportionate, when the managers withdrew their "rear-guard" of ring keepers with the oaken cudgels. " All you with sticks come on," were the last official words. Appeals were made to officials, ex-pugilists, as if for very life. "OJ • Bill, let mc come; haven't I worked like a horse?" when the door finally closed. Then there were rushes and appeals throngh tho denlike iron rails of tho barricade for " auld lang sync," aud the like, to be allowed to pass. Mace, who showed himself, looked lull stout for hid fearful task. Brcttle, Tom King, and most of tho magnates of pugilism were appealed to but in vain. One young ruffian, laden with a bottle of water for the occasion, advised the bursting in of tin; doors. The outsiders only relinquished the idea for want of co-operation inside. At 4*24 the train got off, some twenty follows at the last moment jumping on the footboards and clinging most dangerously to the carriages, so greedy, at all risks, were they for the coming carnival of brutality.