A MOTORIST’S END.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 48, 21 February 1912, Page 2

A MOTORIST’S END.

DRIVES OVER A BANK INTO A RIVER.

A man rushed breathlessly into Wisbech, a small town in the English Midlands, early one morning last month, with the news that he had seen the top of a large hooded motor car under the surface of the river Nene about a mile away from the town. It was not until late in the afternoon that the river gave up its tragic secret, and that the crowd who had watched hour after hour at the bank turned away in horror, for the sinking tide showed the lifeless figure of a man seated in the driving seat of the car. ■ . '

His hands grasped the steeringwheel which had led him over the brink of the steep bank to his death, and one of his feet was on the footbrake.

The dead man was Mr J. W. Grabtree, one of the most popular men in this quaint old town, and it was only about a week before that he was reelected to a position on the town couiir cil.

How the accident occurred will always remain a mystery, for Mr Crabtree was alone in the car when it rushed into the river, and no one witnessed the accident.' , . On the Friday night he left March, which is about ten miles distant, for home, driving his 15-horso-power Humber. He took the road which, for the greater part of the way,' runs parallel with the river Nene,; and he must have met with the disaster somewhere about 10.35 at night. His watch stopped at that time. Little anxiety was felt at his homo when ho did not arrive that night, for the weather was terribly rough, and it was thought that he had remained in March.

In the morning came the story of a motor car in the river—the beginning of hours of weary waiting. The water at this point is 25 feet deep, and until the tide ebbed to the full it was impossible to tell if the car held a passenger.

That vigil on the bank was the most poignant part of the tragedy. Mr Crabtree’s son was one of the crowd, and at home his mother waited for the news which only the ebb tide could tell.

Slowly the water sank between the narrow banks, baring, • inch by inch, the canvas hood of the ear, but seven long hbui-s passed before the water revealed its victim. A boat with three inert in it then put out from the bank, and moving the mbtorist’s hands from the steering-whe'el, they lifted him from his seat and rowed to'the bank.' 1 i i -i -i ■

. Ihe car was dragged J out by a traction erigineup the 1 same batak down which if had dived to disaster. The road to .Wisbeck from March is very dangerous. There is no protection from the river bank, which’ in some places is from six to eight feet high, and it waf over -the’ steepest part of the bank that the car plunged. The most extraordinary part of the accident was the fact that the marks' of, the wheel oh the .nlbank showed that the car went over at right angles to the road. It I must have dropped six feet and taken-the water, without overbalancing, for its path into the river was plainly shown. Probably the impetus carried it well out into the bed of the stream, which is very deep. : -e* The hood of the car was a, canvas one, but it was not drawn over the driver’s seat at the time, and Mr Crabtree must have been imprisoned in the car by the steering-wheel. As far as could be learnt there was nothing wrong with the steering-gear of the car. The only probable explanation of the accident seemed to lie in the fact that at night strong headlights make all objects look alike, and Mr Crabtree must have mistaken the water for a turning in the road, and steered straight into it. A terrific gale was blowing, and the night was pitch dark, and he was driving along a road where the slightest mistake would take him over the bank. Some years before there was another tragedy at this spot. A farmer and Ins family were driving Jiome one dark night, when the horse and trap went over the bank, and three or four lives were lost.