THE ARMAGH DISASTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9423, 22 July 1889, Page 5

THE ARMAGH DISASTER.

FULL DETAILS. AN APPALLING CATASTROPHE. SEVENTY CHILDREN KILLED. DISTRESSING SCENES. A DnbtiiN correspondent, under date June 12, writes as follows:—This morning, near Armagh, occurred the most disastrous and appalling railway accident ever known in Ireland, resulting in the death, so far as can be at present ascertained, of over seventy persons, and tho injury of as many more. To-day Was the day, chosen for the annual excursion of Dr. Lynn's Methodist Sunday School to Warren Point, a pretty watering place on the shores of Carlingford Lough. Dr. Lynn is one of the most prominent of the Methodist body in Ireland, and his Sunday School is attended by many children belonging t6 other denominations, and the annual excursion—for Which cheap fares are issued to all the friends and relatives of the scholars a very popular event in Afmasjh, and brings together an immense number of people every year. MARCHING TO DEATH. About a thousand little ones marched through the streets of the old cathedral city this morning to the railway station, with bands playing and banners flying) and accompanied by their teachers and a large concourse of grown-up friends. The tram was started With a heavy freight shortly after ten o'clock. About two miles outside the town there is a long and steep embankment, and when this was reached it was found that the locomotive was not sufficiently powerful to draw up the. lone row of heavilyladen carriages. Accounts differ as to what then occurred. According to some a coup-ling-iron broke* releasing several of the carriages; Recording to others, it was decided to unhook the last seven carriages, and leave them standing on the line, propped in position by stones, while the engine proceeded witii the first portion of the train to the next station, and returned to take up the carriages thus left behind. The locomotive, if the account of this stupendous blunder be reliable—and it is almost impossible to obtain any definite information in the confusion which prevails—in starling off with the first carriages, jerked those in the rear, knocked away the stones, andtlie seven carriages, with their living freight of young children, dashed backwards madly down the incline for about two miles, and crashed into an outgoing train. Some of the carriages were smashed to atoms, aiid their occupants killed on the spot. Why the guard did not put on the brake can hardly be guessed, and tie himself docs not live to tell the tale. The officials at Armagh Station, knowing nothing of the delay at the embankment, had sent on an ordinary train α-t lO.&i, with which the ill-fated excursion train collided.

AX APPALTJXO SCJKNK. The scene on the embankment, as described by eye-witnesses, was appalling in the extreme. Children, dazed and stupefied by the shock, rushed aimlessly about, looking for their friends and guardians. Many bodies were buried in the debri*. All the assistance available, and that was not much, was at once given to rescue the wounded and clear the.line. When the first batch of wounded arrived in Armagh, the news spread with lightning-like rapidity through the town, and caused, as can readily be imagined, the mast fearful consternation and alarm. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that half the families, at any rate amongst the Protestant inhabitants of the city, had relatives on the excursion train, and eagerness and suspense were written oil the faces of all. The town was for a time deserted; as the people with saddened faces and anxious hearts flocked out to the .scene of the terrible disaster. The engine lay with wheels uppermost on the side of the embankment, which at this point is over 50 feet high, and along the slopes were strewn several of the injured. The wounded were not, however, (greatly scattered, nil lav within a comparatively narrow area. The iocul doctors and clergymen were amongst the earliest arrivals, and did all they could to be of service to the suffering* News was telegraphed to Belfast early in the morning, and from that place and other towns along the line to Armagh came several surgeons in a special train to render willing assistance. In the little city of Armagh dead bodies to the number of nearly thirty were, before f> o'clock, laid for identification. The wounded were conveved to the County Infirmary, where many died. Ere nightfall nearly a hundred persons known to have been in the train were reported to be missing. About seventy have been wounded, some of them beyond hope of recovery, and the number of deaths totals up to the appalling figure of between seventy and eighty.

A CITY IN MOURNING. It is almost impossible, says a correspondent, to picture the scene in Armagh. The city seems given up entirely to mourning. Shutters are up, blinds drawn, and sombre tokens of death are everywhere visible. Throughout the whole of the night following the accident the streets were crowded not only with the horror-stricken citizens, but witn men and women from all the surrounding districts, who wero hurrying to and fro in a distracted state inquiring for missing relatives, or loudly bewailiug the death or disaster of their friends and acquaintances. The arrival of a large number of shell coffins from Belfast, at 11 o'clock, and some from Dublin at a. later hour, added to the terrible solemnity of the surroundings, and confirmed in a manner there was no mistaking the terrible extent of the calamity.

ARR.F.ST OF OFFICIALS. Four arrests have been made in connection with the catastrophe. The men who had charge of the excursion train —Thomas Me(hath, engine-driver: Henry Parkinson, fireman ; and William Moore, head assistant guard—.'is well as Joseph Elliott, clerk in the traffic manager's oflice. were brought before Mr. Towneend. R.M., and charged with having, by negligence, caused the. death of .Samuel .Steel, petty sessions clerk, who, with his two children, was amongst the victims. They were remanded for three days, bail being refused. (Our cablegrams have since informed us that the prisoners were committed for trial.)

HEKOIO AND TOUCHING INCIDENTS. Everybody who had the opportunity of judging says that a great deal of quiet heroism was displayed on \Vednesday. Adult passengors, wliosc superior strength might have enabled them to scramble through the windows of the locked carriages, in many cases refused to take this course, but, instead, busied themselves while the vehicles ran down hill in helping girls and little boys out ot danger's way. The story of one young lady is very pathetic. She estimated to the full the terrible danger that beset the runaway train, but did not lose her mind. Others were got out of the compartment before the crash came, but she. poor thing, was found after the crash so battered and bruised as hardlv to be recognisable. A little boy tells of his miraculous escape. In the midst of the hubbub that prevailed in the compartment, some kindly hand lifted him through the opeti window. He fell lightly upon the soft grass, and rolled down the embankment, greatly scared but little hurt, landless are the narrow escapes talked about, and the eulogiums paid to the inedicai men and others who helped in the rescue. Among the touching stories narrated is that of a man who, accompanied by his two little girls, was found lying with a wound on his head. On being propped up, and a little brandy being administered, he pointed in tho direction of his two children, whose corpses were lying beside him, and said, " Do what you can for them ; don't mind me." They were his last words, for the next moment he dropped dead. A thrilling story is told of a private in the Royal Irish Fusiliers named Cox, a fine powerful fellow, who, when he saw that a collision was imminent, got upon the footboard of the carriage in which he had previously been seated, and dropped four children "to the side of the railway, where they were afterwards picked up uninjured. .He appealed fco Mr. .Steel, petty sessions clerk, and others to climb out and let him drop them, but they refused. He then jumped oil' just iii time to save himself. He afterwards took part in the work of extricating the dead and wounded. lii some, cases whole families' have been killed. Amongst others who lost their lives were three attendants in tlu> district lunatic asylum. A sad case is that of a widow named Burke, whose only soil is among the killed. Her husband and another son met with violent deaths within the past two years. STORY OV A 3UKVIVOR. The Itev. W. S. MeK.ee, Methodist minister, who is one of the injured, said : We got on well enough until we got to the incline near Hamiltonsbawn station. YVheu coming Up to that place I noticed that the train was going slowly, and on looking out we saw that the engine was not able to take us over the incline. The moment the train stopped —they did not try to work it on—someone rushed down to the end and asked the guard to put on the break and prop the wheels. They propped a few of the wheels with a fewpebbles. There Wad not the slightest attempt made to brake her, and we tore down the incline at a fearful rate. ~ Some qf the parties wanted to jump out* and 1 advised them to remain there) and, not knowing the line well, ,-!• said probably something would stop us. Spine one cried outj We will meet the 20 to ,ij train,'.' and the words .'were'hardly out of 'hie mouth when we ran into the other train, and William M'Mullenj son of one of the superintendents of the excursion party, was killed .instantaneously, as were also four or five others in the carriage. I got both my legs crushed, and wtvs seamed with the steam*

and afterwards I fell down the embankment. There was the most culpable negligence on the part of the railway servants. The doctors hurried out almost immediately, but it was not by the act of the railway company that they came.