A Wonderful Escape.

Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 103, 29 October 1888, Page 4

A Wonderful Escape.

+ A Molbourne oabman named John Orange has gono through an exporiunco whioh would havo cost most men their lives, but Orange Burvives to givo the details of a molt extraordinary aooidont. Orango was engaged by two gontlemen to drive them to and from a dinner party which was given at Toorak on Friday night. By tho time the p-rty broke np Orange had managed to make himielf so intoxicated that his fares proferrcd to walk homo in preferenoe to trusting themsoves to his oare. He therefore started for ton atv Ith his hansom by himßelf. He got completely confused as to the road ho should take, and about midnight he found hinuelf in a poddook near the Yarra. He nearly drove into a shaft 40ft deep, whioh had been used as a well for a windmill, but escape d by t kin? a sharp turn while he was on the very edge. He thon got into a very mnoh worse poiition, though he was unaware of it at the time. He was driving on the cdje of an embankment eighty feet high, sloping into tho Yarra, whon ho decided to return the way he had come. He endeavoured to turn his horf c, and tho result was that horse, cab, and driver wore precipitated over the embankment. Horse and oab rolled over and over, and dashed into the river at a spot where it runs 26ft dc op. By a stroke of good luok Orange bcaamo unseated half way down the embankment, and was safely deposited on a lodge there 4ft. wide, where he slumbored till the morning. It was only on awakening at daylight that he realised what had happened. He went and told his story at the Toorak police station, and whon the rivor was dragged the oab was fished up from the bottom, and, strange, to say, was not much injured. Stranger still, the horse was found to have oaoaped, and was discovered, somewhat knocked abont, grazing on the opposite bank of the river. The only explanation as to how the horse got f r: ois that whon the oab Btruotc the water it floated for a few Seoonds, and the horße'a hattnohes wont under. The weight of the animal broke the girth, and the horse, sinking in a backward direotion, the collar passed over his h:ad and bulled off tho * inkers. Finding himself free, lie struck oat for the shore, while the oab slowly sank to the bottom.