SHOCKING- RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 167, 14 July 1880, Page 4

SHOCKING- RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

The San Francisco correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes : —

A horrible accident has plunged the town in temporary gloom. One of the »Sunday excursion trains to Santa Cruz, "heavily freighted with happy week-day toilers, came to terrible grief in passing one of those sharp curves which New .Zealand people know how to appreciate bo well, in the roads cut through stupendous hills. The brakes gave way ; the first car slipping off the rails, cast its living load against the bank, and indiscriminately over the track, while the following cars went on at full speed over the unfortunates until stopped by a perfect mound of bodies, dying and dead. From an eye-witness, I understand that nothing more fearful can be imagined than the human agony he witnessed. On the bright and golden Sabbath Day men and their wives were maimed and mangled past recognition, jying as they fell. The screams of the poor children were heartrending; friends groped among the mangled forms, with white and horror-stricken faces, looking for those they knew ; and the victims who were injured beyond recognition prayed for death, as a relief from this more dreadful suffering. Among this sorrow, which words cannot paint, the human fiends, who are ever present under all circumstances, found their opportunity to rob the dead and dying, adding additional terror to the scene. For many days past there have been funerals of the victims, as they have died off from the effects of their injuries — funerals of nearly a mile in length, so vast has been the sympathy with the sufferers.