A DUEL ON TOP OF A TRAIN AT FULL SPEED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7270, 7 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

A DUEL ON TOP OF A TRAIN AT FULL SPEED.

Two men are now laid up at their boarding house on East Jefferson-street, Louisville, suffering from the effects of wounds inflicted with, bowie knives in a duel fought on top of a freight train running at the rate of 30 miles an hour.. The names of the men aro George Jackson. and James Wilson, conductor and brakeman respectively on the Lexington division of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Jackson was coming west with his freight train when he got into difiicalty with kis rear brakemau, Jim Wilson. The row occurred in the caboose over a woman. The men were about to come to blows when a proposition was made to tight a duel on the top ot the caboose with bowie-knives, with which both men were armed. No sooner was the proposition made than it was accepted, • and, drawing their weapons, the men climbed to the top of the car. The other employees on the train gathered around to witness the deadly conflict. The train was whirling along at the rate of 39 miles an hour between Christiansburg and Eminence when the men announced themselves ready for the battle. With their knives raised high in the air they rushed upon each other and closed in. Slash went the glittering weapons, right and left, through the heavy wearing apparel and into the flesh of the combatants. Blood trickled from the knifeblades and bespattered the roof of the car. It was apparently a combat to the death. Still neither man snowed signs of mortal wound* ing. The train sped along, and the engineer kept* close look-out ahead, little dreaming of the terrifio fight going on behind him. The warning signal of a low bridge was sounded, and for a few moments the duellists separated and hugged close to the roof of the car. Whiz went the train through the bridge. Almost instantly the men were on their feet and at it again. Jaekion received a slash across the breast, causing a frightful wound, but, notwithstanding the wound, he seemed to fight all the harder. He rushed upon his antagonist with the ferocity of a tiger, and would have hurled his bowie to the hilt in Wilson's body had it not been for the train just at that moment flying around a curve, causing, * lurch and the throwing down of Jaokson. He was on hie feet again, however, in an instant, whon the train men, not desiring to bo witnesses to a murder, put a stop to further proceedings. Both men were badly hurt, but the wound in Jackson's breast is the moat serious, aud is considered dangerous,