A FEILDING MAN IN AMERICA.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 114, 9 November 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

A FEILDING MAN IN AMERICA.

By a letter which came to hand by tho last "Frisco mail, dated August 26th to a friend in Feilding, Mr. J. W. F. Halcombe gives an account of a novel and somewhat I startling experience he had en route to his new home at Grand Kapids, in the U.S.A. He saya :" I don't know that this train robbery will be of more interest than any other train robbery that excepting for the fact I was one of the passengers on the train and was sitting in the smoking car next to the baggage car — the one robbed. We were running on time, and when the train came to a standstill we were in a cutting. The first thing we knew several bullets started flying. We surmised we were * held up ' and lat once stuffed my watch and money into the cushions of the seat. There was then a loud explosion as the door (side) of the car was blown open with dynamite, then, as the conductor came out of the baggago car, one of the robbers jumped on the platform and fired two or three shots at him, and told him to hold up his hands, which he did. The man on the platform kept the conductor and baggage man covered while another of the gang blew open the safe. The whole business took about 15 or 20 minutes, and all that while the robbers outside kept up a fusillade alongside the train to keep the passengers inside. I don't wanttobein anymore 'hold ups.' One is plenty for me. Guess a good many of the lady passengers, and not a few of the men, were j pretty badly scared. One of the brakemen got shot in the side and a lady in one of the cars had a narrow shave, as a bullet passed through one of the windows and just missed her head. Afew of us gentlemen in the 'smoker ' saw the whole affair, and I cannot say now lam sorry I was in it. Two of the robbers^ — the one that stood on the platform aud the one that blew up the safe — were spotted on one of the trains going north, and Detective Powers in attempting to arrest them got shot dead, and they escaped; but yesterday (August 25th) the one who shot Powers was shot by two sheriffs, and I guess the other one will soon get shot." Mr. Halcombe concludes his letter by sending his kind regards to the "boys in the Company," Manchester .Rifles. — Feilding Star.