DEATH IN THE CAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12609, 25 June 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEATH IN THE CAR.

THE .VICTIMS; OF THE 'AMERICAN' - RAILROADS. Thb laws of the United' States. compel the railway? companies to report all accidents to the Inter-state CommerceXommasslon;;: and thus one may count tip a death-roll so enormous— in a single year—as to raggesfc a comparison with [hoe havoc of war. During the year' ending June 30, 1903, 321 passengers" and 3233 employees were killed, and 6973 passengers and 3004 employees were injured. * But as bad as is the report for 1903, it is encouraging as showing improvement over that for the previous year. In 19055, 345 passengers Were killed - and 6683 injured. Of the employees, 296S 1 were killed'and 50,524 injured. In 1901, 282 passengers*were killed and 4983 injured. Of the employees,.267s were killed r and. 41,142 ■ injured. "K The >. number; of j persons other than ; passengers and employ- | ees who were killed in .railway accidents was 5498, and injured 7209, making a casualty list for the. year of 61,794. . .. ! During thirteen years,-'ended. Jane 30, 1900. 86,277 were killed and 469,027 injured. .';'■' here is one travelling man, of the name of George J." : Carter, whose home is Jin i New York, who claims to have invented and to.be the holder of a new kind of championship. He calls himself the champion " disaster; man" of this c>r any other country, and recently wrote'! an particle .'on tl«" experiences by which he ; earned this remarkable distinction. He has travelled 200,000 miles in twenty years, with the following results: • He has been in almost one hundred railroad wtecks. - He has been in ioui wrecks in one day and three in another. * <-{ He has been ' injured and rendered unconscions many times, but has been dangerously hurt only once. "The wrecks I have- passed through" (he writes) " comprise derailed trains,*; telescoped trains, head-on collisions, broken trains,' spread tracks, rear-end wrecks, and tumbling down embankments when turning curves ;at high speed. "I have had seat companions killed at my side and 1 hive vacated seats only » minute before a wreck brought death to the man who took my place. ;I' have come to be a fatalist, and I am confident that I shall not meet withy, a > violent death." j:xi When, a despondent man threw himself under the wheels of Jim Mulligan's engine in Connecticut last January the newspapers, circulated -a' report that the suicide was, the fifty-first person killed by Mulligan's engine within twenty years. Needless to say, Mtillij; a was copiously interviewed. 'If I thought for ? minute that I was to blame for one of those ctses do you suppose I'd run another mile? No. sir!" he exclaimed indignantly. " But I. haven't killed fifty-one. Maybe there'a a dozen or fifteen. I've, never kept any account; but that's all. "I "feel as badly" (he went on) "as | though *it were one of my own children every time. But what can.you do? ; You are powerless. When a man comes sneaking out to a lonely spot and hides behind" a bank, and you're tunning near forty miles i an ' hour within - twenty 'feet "at ' him ; oni a. curve, and he jumps and 'dives :down:j across the track, can you help running him down? No, sir 1" j