ENGLISH NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Otago Witness, Issue 523, 7 December 1861, Page 2

ENGLISH NEWS BY THE MAIL.

f-j liOMUSTIC NT.WS. j;l "We Live brca\raste<l, and dined, and supped off c ''.orrors during the la«t few waeks. One billow ; . of disaster has so rabidly (••ttcceoded another, tii.il ,j the public mind has b:;en overshadowed with , j^loom. A frightful accident has hap-iened near girlie Kentish Town Station of the North London '"1 15 ail way. The mi.-r'iief occurred to an excursion "jrrain, which was returning from Kew Gardens. |X .ibout seven o'clock in the evening. On leaving '• K'iw, six trains were (bund necessary to convey! \ | the passengers home. The first of these reached ill its destination in safety. The second at du-sk had -reached the Kentit-h Town Station, which it r ' passed without stopping, at the rare of thirty mile.' „,1-iti Jiour. At that moment a train of ballast c I trucks was being leisurely shunted on to a siding. __ I Before the operation could he completed, and ,*! n-ithiu sight of persons in the neighbouring house j the excursion train dashed into the ballast train, •'cutting it in two, and crushing up die trucks. The * I engine of the pa^en-gcr train was thrown off the .' [ embankment, and draped four carriages after it. - The «cene, as witnessed from the fields, was terrific. Immediately the engine had struck the | trucks, and shivered them to atoms, it leaped from 'the rails with a sort of half-puff, half-bedow, which •was heard to a distance of fully half a mile, and rr | rolled^ down, the embankment *on it« own side of S|the line with a hideous dull sound, and one or • jtwo frightful screeches. The carriages which fol3flowed ran on a few feet ; but just at the spring of ;. | the arch of the bridge, the break bounded right rjover, and was followed by four carriages, in which | were a number of passengers. The first two jjumped clean into tn<i Jieid, a depth of forty feet, J where the}' lay on their sides, one over t'-ie other. " j The awful scenes that cumic.l, equalled the horrors '.of the Clayton tunnel slaughter. A dozen perJ jsons were instantly hurried into eternity, while "j fifty or sixty wire maimed or mangled, some of ■,\vhom lnve since sank under t<:cir snllVrfngs. !j" Light was all important (says one of the re1 porters), and the rein tins of the break which ha I j fallen over, were set (ire to. There was no need : ' to chop it up small, for it had been shivered into i a thousand fragmsnt--. Wiien the pieces were in jft blaze the spectacle was move, awful than it had hitherto been. Tue glare discovered the wonnde 1 | men, woman, and children that lay about suri rounded bj' little irroups, who rendered them suchi '•a^istanco as could be procured on the instant. 'Two or three of the smashed carriages formed one '■monster lire that shut np its fl.imo.i to an immense 1 height. T!ia w.rml-d lay here and there wr.th-j : .jiug in agv):iy. Men were" engaged i:i di.ig-j.ingl, (Corpses fiom un "n-r w'loete and axletives. and our Jof carriages tir-.t ha 1 been crushed like pasteboard. , [Gentlemen and ladies csr.'i ie.l wtter-cans, bottles, jand of,her vessel*, snd were constantly giving' |t!iO'-2 drinks which the mangled ro greedily a^ked ,'for. Jliiny ladies ran about with linen to bandage I 'the wor m led, »ud themselves assisted in the kind ! jofliee." \ j While in tiiis disnul vein, I may as well men- ] . j t ion a frtisli disaster which lias happened to the : .] unfortunate Great Eastern. She left the Mersey j \ on the H)th instant for America, with 400 pas•»eniyars and a far larger cargo th:tn sbe ever ' before shipped. On the 12th, when sbe had at- ( , rained a distance of 2v>o2 v >0 miles west of Cape Clear, the gre.U slrip encountere.i a terrific gale, which s»vopt w.iy b >th pi'Ules, tore th.2 suils into ribbons, and wrenched off -the top of the mdJer- j pojt, t\ bar of iron ten inches in diameter ; so j ih.it all power over her helm was loit. and the t 'nipe hull lay like a lo^ in the trougli of the seas ; from Tlun's.lay evening until two o'clock on ; Sunday. For nea-iy three days the fury of the ( :cmj>Bst continued unabatfd. and the ship rolled j ■so fearfully, her bulwarks almost touching the « •ca — that all on board were in constant dread of \ her going over, and expected every moment to j i)G their last. Every movable article got loose ; f the furniture of the saloon.* and of tiie cnlu :s, • .til iliii e.irrlic;) ware and gl.-m, anrl most of t h e j t jussengeM' laggige. were smashed, destroyed. jr iisd in sum? ruses reduced to a pulp, by sixtyjc : hours' churning ; while many of the passengers.it including several Indies, were most seriously j( j maimed and bruised. The gre.it ship, in faft. c 'pi-e^ented the appearance of un utter w.-eck. On t jSan.laj' a temporary ruldcr w.is fitted and thc|c ■disabled vusisel thus once more under co-nmand, 1 } made for Cork, running with her screw alone at|t the rate of nine miles an hour. Sbe was towed t into Cork li:u'bouj;-oii-y.-uesdny'<;veiiiujr^the-L7th.li ! Another source of terror to the inhabitants of < the metropolis coniis.s in the imi.ionse multipli-l ■[cition of great firt-s ot late. Kvur since the tre- ! j jmenloua c mflagration in Tooley-slreet, we have i had a succession of ahinn'ng jiivJ tiiMtructivo tires \ i)eyi)ii 1 all formjr i»rc. i ueJent. It i 3 no uncommon j( thing to see the announcement of three in a'f j single morning. I ; i a fuw liour^, mouic oxcensivt' ( [sugar-works were utterly destroyed, involving a ( 'loss of property valued at £ 10.00 1, and imporil-i; ing a forest of ships in the London Docks. ji Paternoster Row has had a narrow escape of' i being laid in ruins; as it is, an immense elmsmic has been burnt, bordering on and including partjv of MtMsrs. Longmans' establishment. Space; a would fail me to tell of numerous similar disas-! lerd. The public is chiefly disquieted at the! utter inadequacy of the ordinary means at our disposal for preventing or extinguishing these 'huge city •'onii-igraiions. Or' explosions, boiler j burstings, murders, suicides, and other Roi-ial I calamities, we have had consi lerably more than fc the average. Our papers have bi late been inert ,3, 3 chronicles of horrors and woes. , " Among other on dits, it is reported that a marriage is piojected between the Prince of Wales „ | and a Danish p:incess — an alliance which the r I Paris journals represent »as likely t) sow discord i I between the Courts of Lon lon and Berlin. J.