THE GREATEST RAILWAY DISASTER ON RECORD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1676, 30 September 1887, Page 3

THE GREATEST RAILWAY DISASTER ON RECORD.

* Cut from Peotia, 111., Wednesday evening, 10 h Anguat, sped a special train of ! fif een coacheß, crowded with over 900 ' gay, happy- hearted excursionists. Just before midnight, as drawn by two enginc-a, it passed through Chataworth at rapid Bpeed, the engineer saw, to his horror, \ a burning bridge ahead. Death, and a dreadful death was there, inexorable Into the fire and down through the bridge the lr:ila phnred m an awful wrick, Ovor 100 persona were killed outright and four t!maß that number injured Sevonty-threa bodies, mangled almost beyond recognition, have been taken from the wreck. The work of rescue was a hard and brave one by the survivors. The train was composed of six eloepine care, b!t day ooachea and chair ova, and three biggage. It was carrying 960 passengers, all excursionists, and was bound for Niagara Falls. The train «ras bo heavy that two engines ware hitched to it. Three mt ; 63 east of Chatsworth is a Httlo slough, whera the railroad cross *• a dry run about 10 feet deep and 15 feet wide. Over this was stretched an ordinary wooden trestle bridge ; and as th« exourslon train came thundering down on it, what was the horror of the engineer on the front engine when be saw that this bridge was on fire. Right Dp i befora bis eyes leaped the bright flames and the next imtant ha was m the fiery farnaoe. There was no chance to tt>p. Bad there been warning half a mile would have been Deeded to stop that onrushing mass of wood, iron and human lives, and the train was within 100 yards of the red-tongued messenger of death before the fatal signal fl jehad iuto the engineer's face. But he pasßed over m safeiy, the first engine keeping the rails. As it went over, the bridge (ell beneath it and it could only'hava been the cerrfic speed of the train which awed the lives of the engineer and his fireman. The next engine went down, and ina'antly the deed of death was done Oar crushed into car, coaches piled one on trp of another, and In the twinkling of an eye neatly 100 people found iaatanl dea*h, and 50 more were so hurt th*y could n t live. As for the wounded »hey were everywhere. Only the sleeping cna^hos escaped, and as the Btartled and half dressed passengers came tumbling out of them they found a scene of horrid death, and such work to do that It seemed as if human hands were utterly incapable. It lacked but five minutes of midnight. Instantly the air wbb filled wi t h the cries of the wounded and the shrieks of the dying. The groans of men and the screams of women united to make an appalling sound, and above all could be h-ard the agonising cries of little children who lay pinned alongside their dead parents. And there was another terrible danger yet to be met. The bridge was Bt'll on fire, ana the wrecked oars were lying on and around the fiercely burning embers. Everywhere m the wrcok were wounded and unhurt men, women and children, whose lives cjuld be saved if they could be gotten out, but whose death— and death m a most horrible form —was certain if the twisted wood of the broken cars caught fire. To fight the fire there was not a drop of water, and only some 50 able bodiad men who still bad presence of miud and nerve enough to do their duty. The only light waa the light of the burning bridge. And with io much of its aid the 50 men went to nork to fight the fl tines. For four hours :hey fought like fiYnds, and for four hours the victory hung In the balance. Earth was the only weapon with which ihe foe could be fought, and so the attempt wa3 made to smother it out. There was ao pick or Bhovel to dig it up, no baskets jr barrowj to carry it, and bo desperate were they that they dug their fiogerß down in'o the earth, which a long drought h*d baked almoat as hard as stone, and heaped the precious handfals thus hardly won upon tho approaching flames, and with this earthwork, built handful b> handful, kept back the foe. So they dug up the earth with their bad s, reckless of the blood streaming out Erom broken finger nails, and heaped it up m little mounds, while all the whil e came Ihe heartrending cry, " For God's sake don't let us burn to death " Finally the victory was won. The fire was put out after four hours of endeavor, and ss its last sparks died away, the light came up m the east, and dawn came upon a scene of horror.

No B-ioner had the wreck occurred than a scene of robboiy commenced. Some band of abominable, heartless miscreants was on hand, and, like the guerillas who tbiong a battle-field the night after the conflict and filch from the dead the money which they received for their meagre pay, stealing even the bronze medals, and robbing from the children of heroes the other worthless emblems of their fathers' bravery, bo did these homan hysenas plunder the dead from this terribla accident, and take even the shoes which covered their feet. Who theße wretches are is iot noy known. Whether they were a band of pickpockets who accompanied the train, or some robber gang who were Lurking ia the vicinity, cannot be a aid The horrible suspicion, however, exists — and there are many who give it creditthat the accident was a deliberately planned case of train wrecking ; that the bridge was set on fire by miscreants who hoped to seize the opportunity offered It eeems hardy possible that man could be so lost to all the ordinary feeling which animates the basest of the human rac?, but still men who will rob dead men wbo trill steal from the dying, and will plunder the wounded, held down by the broken beams of a wrecked car, wonndei, whoae death by fi-e Beemed imminent, can do almost anything whioh is base j aud that ia what these human fiends did. They went into the oara when the firo was burning fiercely underneath, and when the poor wretches who were pinned there begged them "for God's sabs to help them oufc,"atripp-d them of their watcheß and jewellery, and eearched their pockt-ts for money. When the dead bodies were laid out ia the cornfields, these hyajnas tamed them over m their search for valuables, and that the plundering was done by an organleed gang was proven by the fact that this morning out m the cornfield 16 purees, all empty, were found In one heap. It was a ghostly plundering, and had the plunde'era been caught, they would surely have been lynched. H. W. White one of the survivors, says j — One of the horrible incidents wbb a man well dressed who was bo badly in< jurod that bio bowala we.re protruding. He called passionately for water, and as he could not be attended to, he finally pulled out his revolver and shot himself through the read. Ooe little boy, the ton of the Methodist minister at Abington, Frank Snodeoker, was found on the bosom of his dead mother. His left leg hang by the skin; hie right arm wob broken, and one eye was put out. fle never uttered a groan as they pulled him out and tried to giro him a drink of brandy. He refused to take Ir, and Bald, ' Gfve me water " He never- uttered a groan. % found a head hanging l from the trcctf. iV'was appa*ent 1 y a man, and hud 'been caught by the hair I found Several headless bodies. Those who recognised {tie dead immediately ticketed, them. There was one incident of the accident which Btood oat more horrible than all of those horrible eoen93 s In the second ooaoh was a mar, his wife and lit'le child. When the accident occurred, the entire family of three was caught and held down by broken woodwork. Finally, whan relief came, the man turned to the fr'end and .fesWy Bald : •• Take out my wife fink I'm afraid the child ia dead,-" cfo they carried oat the mother, and as a broken Beat was taken off h&r crashed breast, the.

bio- d which wdled from h«r lipa told !i vr bad y sh^ w* : » hurt. They can-Jed th«! child, a fair haired bjue-^yed girl of hive, and laid hor m the corr.fisld, dead, alongside it hor eying mother. Then they went back for the father and brought him 'out. Both his leg 3 were broken, bnt be crawled through the corn to the side of his wife, and feeling her loved features iv the darkness, pressed some brandy to her lips and asked her how she felt. A feeble groan was the only answer, and the next instant she died. The man felt the formß of bis dead wife aud child, and cried < ufc, "My God, there ia nothing more for me to livo for now," and- taking a pistol from hia pooker, pulled the trigger. The bullet went surely thri u^h his brair>, and the three dead bodies of that little fatally Jay side by side amid the waving corn.