PERILS OF TRAIN WRECKING. AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 81, 3 October 1904, Page 5

PERILS OF TRAIN WRECKING. AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT.

To-day's cable messages refer to the -wrecking operations on Ihe Manchurian railway. An account given ay ar American correspondent of a Japs-'-ese spy who wrecked a bridge in Manck-cia eaily^la the war, illustrates the te**ible dangers of this work and the heroism , of the men j who engaged in it. Ito ana another spy named Sbibata formed a during plan to entrap a train coming Sosih. Shibato was to blow up one bridge and Ito the other, and then, when the tuin waa traiifed between the two shafcv-red bridges, to was to go across coun-iy for forty' miles to a Japanese detachii.ont and lead them to the derelict train. Ito concealed himself in the ironwork c-f the bridge at nightfall, approaching the structuie from the frozen river-bed, and so avoiding the sentry at each end. Here he made a mistake, for he should have waited below until the train had passed, I'or there he would have had a better chance of keeping out the cold. But up •-* the girders the cold was terrible, and die freezing iron sank into his bones. T{<- train whioh he had expected early in th. evening did not arrive till after midnigwt, and mere in his position of torture va waited ior seven hours. At length tb* train came along and woke him from b«- half-stupor, and he found himself so par*»sed that he could scarcely move. The ciirge of powder had already been set, Sm*. his fingers were so dead with the cold iiiat he 'Could not at first grip the matt-kni. At the second attempt, novrever, h. succeeded in lighting a match clumsily, ihil it cracked loudly in the stillness, and fc He dropped down to the onow on the n*or-bed below he heard the feet of the otwieed sentry above; Crawling on his haeds and knees into the shelter of the bridge, he heard the sentry give the alarm, atiti then, judging as best he could 'the tiir»* of the fuse, he darted out into the aa-vonligut. He was a moment too soon, ay two shots were fired, the .second sending Ito sprawling in the «now. Then came the explosion, and one end of tba bridge was wrecked, and in the wreckage were the bodies of the two sentries. ij» was senseless for a time, but ultimately -recovered consciousness, and with frozen extremities and weak frpin. loss of blood, he found his way across country to the detachment, after terrible suffering's. He never recovered from the effects oi his experience, and the conespondents. saw him in U}» Hiroshima Hospital, add described him as; it frightful picture. "Most of his fingers had been frozen off, his body was indescribably emaciated. Hw face was as one that had been seared and twi&ted by fire; an expression of toiturs had found a permanent lodging among his leatures. Bui. before he dkd. he was roused by an injection to receive from a member of the Imperial Household a message of appreciation from the Emperor.