A NARROW ESCAPE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5235, 13 December 1883, Page 2

A NARROW ESCAPE.

A remarkable escape from a violent and, shocking death is reported by the Philadelphia Record :—": — " The engineer of the train which reaches the city from Norristown at 11 o'clock at night, has had a thrilling ex* perience. His train left Norristown with every prospect of reachins 1 Ninth and Green street station in time, and without incident worth mention, The train was rushing on at the rate of about 30 miles an hour, and was within half a mile of Conshohocken.when the watchful engineer was horrified at seeing a man lying within a lOOydsaheadof his engine, and with his head apparently on the rail.' The air-brakes were put down, the engine - reversed, and every effort made to stop the train before the wheels reached the man's' ■ head. It was too late. On the engine rushed — on a hundred yards before the train, could be stopped. When it came to a standstill, the conductor, engineer, and a number of passengers went back to pick up the mangled remains o£ the unfortunate victim. Imagine their surprise upon discovering that the man was neither dead nor mangled, but sleeping quietly alongside the track, hot at all disturbed by the racket which had been recently made by_ the passing train. Hia head was on a tie not more than two inches from the rail, and the wheels of the train must have passed over it within less than that distance. His body was stretched along the sleepers just outside the rail. The conductor woke him up-roughly, and asked him -what he meant by thus courting such a terrible death. ' I don't want nothing but . a little nap,' said he, ' and I don't see why ; a feller can't go to sleep out in the air in the country without getting hauled about like he was a thief.' When the danger of his position was pointed out to him he only said : • Well, I guess I had better get out a little further.' He was finally driven off, and warned not to attempt such a nap again. >He went off grumbling, and not at • all grateful. Engineer Ober says he never saw such a man. 'I believe,' said he, ' that that fellow could hwe slept on top of one of the volcanoes of Java during an earth- , quake.' "