A BRAKESMAN'S DREAM.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1475, 26 April 1873, Page 4

A BRAKESMAN'S DREAM.

Recently, in Alton, Illinois, a man, while under the influence of a dream, nearly killed his wife. Edward Halkins, a brakesman on the Chicago, Alton, and St. Louis Railroad, who was newly married, had been doing extra work, taking a sick friend's train in addition to his own, and so had no sleep for 48 hours. Naturally, he was very tired when he went home, and after going to bed he soon fell asleep. The dreams he had, and their almost tragic termination, are graphically described by a local newspaper: — "Again his foot was on his native platform, and he heard the warning toot of the whistle for brakers. The shadowy train bore him swift on ; the telegraph poles fleeted past quicker and quicker ; the whole country fled , by like a panorama mounted .on sheet-lightning rollers. In his dream he hears far off another roar, and swinging out by the railings, he saw another train coming at lightning speed around the curve. Both trains were crowded with passengers ; in auother moment they would rush together, and from the piles of ruin a cry of agony would shiver to the tingling stars from the lips of the maimed and dying. The engineers had seen their danger, for at that moment, in his' dream, he heard the whistle calling for brakers sqund loud and unearthly; ' With the strength of desperation he gripped the brake and turned it down. There was a yell of pain, and 'Ed.' woke to find, himself sitting up in bed and holding his wife by the ears, having -almost twisted off her head. That's how 'Ed.V wife came to wear a piece of red; flannel round her throat, and complain of a wry neck." As mental, like , physical, diseases are infections, we may confidently qxpect a sad . increase , ©/.mortality .among the brakesmen's wives, ; occasioned by husbands decapitating them, under the impression .that they are brakers 5 . It is likely that life !insurance ! cdmpanies will increase : their fates to such persons, arid eventually brakesmen may fifad it 1 difficult 1 to get married until after they have attended conductorships. '