MADMAN ON AN ENGINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 807, 3 February 1910, Page 3

MADMAN ON AN ENGINE.

STRUGGLE ON AN EXPRESS

TRAIN

A struggle for life occurred recently between an engine driver and a negro stoker, who had suddenly gone crazy while the train was dashing along at fifty miles an hour. It was near Meridian, Mississipi, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, a„d the struggle ended in the c ath of the madman.

The tram had lelt Meridian, and the stoker, wuo was a powerful mulatto, had been throwing coal on the fire, when suddenly he dropped his shovel and attacked the driver, screaming out that he was going to put him in the furnace. The latter, who was sitting on his box, keeping a lookout with his hand on the lever, was taken by surprise, and could do nothing to stop the onrush of the train. The mulatto grappled with him and floored him, and then a terrific struggle ensued, the driver lighting lor his life in the swaying cab of the fighting engine. Twice the negro got the driver down and thrust him toward the open door of the lurnace, but finally the driver, in an access of strength, hurled the madman from the engine, and then in his exhausted state pulled the lever and stopped the train. When the train bauds went back to look for the stoker they found he was dead with his neck broken,