HEROISM OF AN ENGINE DRIVER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3579, 30 December 1882, Page 4

HEROISM OF AN ENGINE DRIVER.

' O, what men dare do ! what men may do ! what men daily do, not knowing what they do !' These words, and the truth of them, are forcibly impressed, on the mind when wo read such stovies as that which has just reached us from New York of the engine-driver who was prepared to sacrifice Ms life for his fellow-creatures, under circumstances that are well described as unprecedented. Nowhere in the pages of Bret Harte, eloquent as they are with deeds of bravery; in none of tho homely manly ballads of Colonel John Hay, who believes so firmly in the Jim Bludsos of modern civilisation ; not even among our own collection of songs of the people, some founded on fact, and others kept in tune by tbe effort of imagination, shall we find a tale so dramatic and so stirring as that of which engine-driver Joseph A. Sieg is the hero. His story deserves to be told in all its simplicity and directness, not for the sake of drawing any particular moral from the fact that yet another brave man has ' seen his duty, a dead sure thing.and went for it there and then,' but as showing that these days of matter-of-fact and" commonplace contribute their quota to the stirring pages of unselfishness, instant resolution, and spotless. chivalry. On Sunday last the Pennsylvania railway train left Jersey city with 620 passengers, the engine being in charge of a man called Joseph Sieg. While "the train was proceeding at the rate of between thirtyfive and forty miles and hour a most unusual accident occurred. The furnace door was opened as usual to replenish the exhausted fuel. There is nothing strange or wonderful in that. How often have we all seen at Home a railway train rushing through the night, the open furnace door casting a deep ruddy glow upon the Bilent surrounding landscape ! There is no more picturesque moment in the career of a railway tr&in — tho steam streaking the black night with white, and the engine-driver and his companion standing out in bold relief against the reddened background. In this case the men in charge of the train suddenly found that they were enveloped in flame. The cause has yet to be accurately determined. One account says that the backward draught shot out this intolerable flame ; another hints that there ■was something wrong with the exhaust apparatus. Anyhow, so swift and violent was the attack from the fiery furnace that before anything could be done the nearest car to the engine caught fire. There was nothing for the mon to do but to clamber over the tender for protection into the carriages, to escape being burned alive. "This they promptly did,[and they were sheltered from the heat as well as in comparative safoty. After the first shock of the disaster the full horror of the situation burst upon the brave engine-driver. The engineer had fouled the spring of tbe air brakes from the cars. Thero was no possible means now of stopping the train. It was running away, unguided, unprotected. Naturally enough, ■with the speed of the train the volume of flame increased ; and the constant crackling of the first burning car, the smoke, and the flames, spread consternation and .horror through the unburned cars among the 600 odd passengers. Nothing but a miracle could now save the burning train; and these wretched people wore confronted with a death as terrible as that which befell tho passengers by tho Irish limited mail, at Abergelo, Worth Wales, in tho month of August, 1808. Tho account of that disaster to this day causes a sickening sensation when W» wad that' twenty-eight parcels of

c harred human remains were laid in Abergele Church to await the coroner's inquest.' What, then, was to be done? Joseph Sieg, the engine-driver, decided that matter off-hand and by himself. In order to stop the burning train, in order to save the lives of those 620 passe ngers, it only needed the devotion of one life, the daring deed of one brave man. He resolved to do it, and there and then, without an instant's hesitation, he prepared to retraco his steps, back from the burning car, back across the red-hot-tender, back through the flame, the roar, and the smoke that surrounded Vim, to stop the train, or to dio doing it. Eor an awful moment or so the engine-driver was lost. No one could face the blinding smoke ; no one could see through the cruel flames. All at once the paralysis of terror which had run through the cars from one end to the other ceased. The train stopped, the danger was over save for an explosion ; and the fireman half mad with excitement, made a rush for his plucky comrade. He was alive, but sorely hurt, burned, and scorched almost to death by his unparalleled and heroic enterprise. Human nature could no longer endure those intolerable flames, so the gallant had climed almost in despair into the water tank to assuage his ngony. There they found Joseph Sieg, his clothes literally burned off his back, his face, hands, and body cruelly scarified by the pitiless flames. The six hundred passengers were safe and rendering thanks for their merciful preservation ; the burning train was easily extinguished, and reverently they bore the injured man to the hospital, where his hurts were pronounced to be so serious that recovery was supposed to be well-nigh impossible. That such fears may prove unfounded will be the heartfelt prayer of all to whom the story is told.