RUN OVER BY A TRAIN.

Evening Star, Issue 11452, 21 January 1901, Page 4

RUN OVER BY A TRAIN.

William (Goodrich Graham, aged eight years, who resided with his parents at Abbotsford, was run over by a goods train at the viaduct on Saturday afternoon and instantly killed. The accident happened at about ten minutes to four. The iacl left his home about two o'clock, to go to a picnic at Freeman's paddock, and evidently stopped on the way to play about the viaduct with his brother 'Donald' (aged thirteen) and another lad named Edward Ensor (aged thirteen). They played about, watching some lads bathe in the creek below, and then William Graham left them to go to the picnic by way of tie railway line. He crawled up on to* the bridge, and was there seen by a man named Henry Berry, who, seeing a train approaching, shouted out to the boy to get off the line. The lad did so, was seen to stoop down as though picking something up, and, immediately after, to return to the line and crawl on his knees in the direction of the train. The latter, twenty-nine waggons long, camp down the hills from the Chain Hills tunnel, and whistled as usual. Then" the engine-driver saw the stooping boy, and gave three sharp whistles for brakes, 'which were immediately put on. The whistles were heard by Henry Berry, but not by the lads mentioned. The engine-driver, Harry Banks, says he saw the boy kneeling on the line, or rather crawling towards his engine. It was too short a distance—two chains and a-half—to pull up, and the engine hit the lad fairly in the centre of the head, and knocked his brains out, killing him instantly. He says that the boy seemed confused*; he was looking to one side and the other, and mado no effort to escape, as he might have done. The body must have been dragged along by the train for about a chain, as the track was bespattered with blood for that distance. When the train drew up at Abbotsford—it was impossible to stop it sooner—assistance was sent out, and the body brought in. The head was fearfully battered about, and was in a state of pulp. The top of the skull was knocked clean off, and the inner ride of the right leg, from the knee to the ankle, was stripped of skin.

An inquest is being held this afternoon at the house of Mr Graham at Abbotsford.