A GOT UP STREET ACCIDENT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXIV, Issue 2978, 9 April 1870, Page 6

A GOT UP STREET ACCIDENT.

INTEEESTINfI EXPEEIMENT. A oobrespondent of the " Pall Mall Gazette" says : — Having been much interested in the account of M. Maxime dv Camp's recent experiment with the view of ascertaining as far as possible the sensations of the guillotined, I determined, a few nights ago, humbly to imitate that gentleman's mode of studying human suffering by going through the ceremony of a street accident. Having made the necessary arrangements with a hansom cab-driver, I assumed the garb of an elderly gentleman, and repaired at 11 o'clock p.m. to the spot I had selected for the expe- 1 riment, an obscure street running at right angles to one of our principal thoroughfares. The first thing I did was to rub my spectacles and peer over the crossing in front of me, carefully refraining from turning my head to observe if any vehicle was likely to whisk round the corner. I then ventured to pick my way through the deposits of mud on the carriage road, until some one halloaed out, " Hi !" in a voice of thunder. I immediately stopped, and, instead of attempting to reach the pavement, commenced turning round and round until I had completed two, or at most three, revolutions ; then I distinctly became aware that I had lost my hat and spectacles, and should have proceeded to look for them, but that a horse's head was above my own, and a horse's chest against my shoulder, and a voice (which I afterwards discovered to be that of the driver) was uttering the most horrible imprecations, so horrible indeed that they even now make me shudder when I recall them. I immediately fell prostrate in the mud, and at once feigned insensibility. The cab, of course, disappeared like a flush of lightning, and a crowd gathered round me. Some lifted me up by my legs, others " loosened" my neckcloth — which, by the way, I never saw again — while others felt my pulse and my pockets, relieving me of the watch and purse which encumbered the latter. A kind-looking old lady, with a large umbrella, burst into tears ; and a hard featured middle aged woman began to distribute tracts. At last a suggestion was made that somebody should run for the police. This suggestion, I presume, was acted on, but the benevolent messenger must have been a 6low runner, if I may judge from the length of time which elapsed before tho distant tramp, tramp, of the police boot was heard, and a constable was seen leisurely approaching. Shouldering his way through the throng which surrounded me, he shook me somewhat violently by the collar, and I heard the words — " What's this ?" uttered in a gruff voice. Unfortunately for me the old lady who wept for me had long since hobbled off; others of the crowd had departed with my valuables ; the later additions to the crowd merely saw an insensible old gentleman covered with mud, and there was no one apparently inclined to say a word in my favor. Instead, therefore, of "telling the constable "what it was," a voice replied " Fitin." I was then dragged a few yards, face downwards, to a pillar letter box, against which I was propped until a stretcher arrived from the police station, upon which I was securely strapped, and ten minutes later found myself in a cell with three drunken Irishmen, a garotter, two suspected burglars, and a pickpocket; having been placed there on tho charge of being, as the constable expressed it, " Dronk and uncapabull." So near as I could calculate (having lost my watch) the whole affair lasted one hour and a half, and 45 minutes elapsed between the accident and the arrival of the constable. — I am, &c, M. Dv Scamp.