A DANGEROUS PRACTICE.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 286, 12 April 1894, Page 2

A DANGEROUS PRACTICE.

Everyone, friends or enemies, will regret the terrible calamity which befel Harry Laing, the well-known pugilist, at Fordell last night. We are informed that he attempted to leave the train when it was in motion. He fell, and getting under the carriages had both of his legs cut off. He was taken to the Wanganui Hospital, where his injuries were attended to. The frequency of accidents of this nature, either from getting in or leaving trains when in motion, does not appear to have any deterrent efiect. This peculiar kind of folly has an attraction to all sorts and conditions of men, from the peer to the pauper, and from the prince to the pugiliat. H,R H., the Prince of Wales narrowly escaped with his life a few days ago from (ittemptinc; to get into a train when in motion, and that prince of pugilists, poor Harry Laing, has fallen a victim to the same act of thoughtlessness. Anyone who watches a tram about, to leave a station platform, can generally eeo one or two silly fellows waiting for the moment for the train to move off to '* make a display " by leaping lightly, or otherwise — according to weight — on to the platform of the carriage. Very often the latter is inconvenienvly crowded by equally silly people who will not go into the carriage and sit down out of the waj of others who desire to get inside to do so. Few passengers exist who have not experienced trouble and inconvenience from this cause, and it is equally probable they may have been offenders themselves. It is known to everyone that under an existing railway bye-law, persons who leave or get into a railway carriage when in motion way be somewhat heavily fined, but as so few are proceeded against the law is looked upon as a dead letter. The sooner it is awakened into active life again, the better.