LATER FROM CALIFORNIA.

Southland Times, Issue 1010, 26 August 1868, Page 3

LATER FROM CALIFORNIA.

(From the ' Sydney Morning Herald.) The last American accident, by which term all horrible massacres and wholesale destructions of life and property are designated, occurred on the 14th of April, near Port Jervis, on the Erie Railroad. By this accident forty lives were destroyed, of which a dozen or more were con- . sumed by fire, while enclosed in the ears. The wickedness of Nebuchadnezzar *in casting Shadraeh and his two friends into the fiery furnace, was no greater than that of the parties to this murderous work. The directors knew the dangerous and unworthy character of the road ; they knew that it could be traversed only at the greatest possible risk; they knew that vast numbers of rails were broken, laminated and wholly unfit for use ; yet, in the full possession of this knowledge, they continued to run their trains until the event, which they had every reason to expect, actually occurred, and this reckless, sinful, wicked destruction is termed an accident. Had such a thing taken place in England, or on the European continent, the directors would soon have found themselves the inmates of a prison, with a strong chance for the gallows. The worship of the golden calf exists to-day with quite as much subservient zeal and disgusting idolatry as in the time of Moses; but we have no Moses to punish the sacrilegious crew. The Sacramento Valley Beet Sugar Company is now fully organised, and has 70,000d01s of its stock subscribed by residents of this city. The capital stock is fixed at 100,000dols, and 30,000d01s more are wanted. This amount will soon be procured. This will make the sum of nearly 300,000d01s raised within this city within the past three months for home business, viz: — 100,000dols to a Life Insurance Company; but to this, there are subscribers from, all parts of the State; lOOjOOOdols for a woollen mill; and lOO.OOOdoIs for the beefc sugar factory. The Insurance Company is now prepared to do business ; the woollen mill will be ready in the coming fall ; and the sugar factory will be on hand so soon as proper experiment shall have heen made and beets raised— say by the fall of 1869. — " Sacramento Bee."