EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE ON A RAILWAY BRIDGE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3887, 4 January 1884, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE ON A RAILWAY BRIDGE.

An old man living in Marshall county recently met with an experience which ho will not noon forget. Ho was walking down the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, about a mile beyond Moundsviilc, aud near liuggin's mill, late in the evening, when he heard a train coming in the distance. A few yards below was a bridge which the old man th night he could cross before tho approaching train reached it. Ho started rapidly, but as he stepped upon the ties tho train appeared in sight. It was still some distance* away, and ho increased his speed in hopes that he would clear the bridge. Suddenly his foot slipped on ono of the oily ties, aud he was thrown to his knees between tho rails. As he rose ho glanced toward tho train, and his blood must have turned cold when he saw it coming into the covered bridge at a speed which, quick as thought, annihilated the short distance l,o:woi.'n it and the trembling man. At the Bam.jt.mo.ho engineer, "Jack" Fleming, saw a 'lark form in the headlight's glare, realistd tho perilous situation, and four sharp, shrill screams from the whistle and tho wheezing of tho air-brakes showed at once that ho was doing his best to stop the train.

In the moment of time which this occupied, tho old man had seized his only hope of saiety. A position where he had one chance in a million for his life suggested itself, and without hesitation he lay down on the onds of the ties. His action was watched by the engineer and fireman, and its almost utter hopelessness was seen. Tlie.v turned away with an involuntary exclamation of horror, expecting tho next instant to feel the jar of the wheols as they mangled his body to shreds. Tho man had scarcely lain down whou tho train was on him, and tho cow-catcher ploughed him from his nurrow shelf. If before ho had but ono chence in a million for his life, it would now seem that evcu that chance was gone. But not so. In his fall the man struck upon ono of tho cross boam-i which several feet bolow tho track from side to side of tho bridge. Ho clasped this with the strength of desperation, and clung to it until tho train had reached the other fide Thon, with weak' and trembling clutch, he di-Rvv himself up to tho track and crawled rather than walked back to shore. There he sat down, scarcely bruised by his rough contact with the engine or his fall, but sick with frit; lit. As soon as the train could bo brought to a standstill, Conductor Manning sout his brakesman, a man named Hillard, back to sue if the man was dead What was their surprise to find him sitting by the track unhurt, and, except for hi.i scaro, no worse for his fearful experience — an experience probably with >ut a precedent.