WITH A MANIAC. Thrilling Incident on an English Railway.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 314, 7 November 1888, Page 5

WITH A MANIAC. Thrilling Incident on an English Railway.

Tuk Rev. de Witb Talmagc, in a letter published xin the St. Louis * Globe Democrat," gives the following account of an experience with a madman in an English railway coach : Tn 1879, in England, T was by a strango event impressed as never before nor since with what an awful disaster is the loss of reason. On my way back from Wales to London I met" with one of the most exciting scenes 1 over witnessed. We were in a railway train going at a terrible velocity. There are two or thveo locomotives in England celebrated for speed. One they call the Flying Dutchman. Another they name the Yorkshire Devil. We were Hying behind one of those locomotives sixty miles an hour. There were live of us — four gentlemen and a lady- in an English car, which is a different thing, as most people know, from the American car. the English car holding comfortably only about oight persons, four of them occupying the scat facing four on the other. We halted at the depAt. A gentleman came to the door and stood a moment as if not knowing- whether to come in or stay out. The conductor compelling him to decide immediately, he got in. He was tiuely gloved and every way well dressed. Seated, he took out hi& knife and began the attempt of

Splitting a Sheet of Paper edgewise, and at bhis sat intently engaged for perhaps an hour. The suspicious of all in the ear were aroused in regard lo him, when suddenlj' he lose and looked around at his fellow-passengers, and the fact was revealed by his eye and manner that he was a maniac:. The lady in the car (she was travelling unaccompanied) became frenzied with triglib and rushed to the door as if to jump out. Planting; my feet against the r'oor, 1 made the death-leap impossible. A look of horror was on all the faces, and the question with each was : ' What will the madman do nexb ?' A madman unarmed is alarming, but a madman with an open knife is terrific. In the demoniac strength that comes to such a one he might make &ad havoc in that flying railroad train, or he might spring oub of the door, as once or twice he attempted. Ib was a question between retaining the foaming fury in our companj' or letting him dash his life out on the rocks. Also it might be a question between his life and the life of one or more in the train. Our one safety said, ' Let him go.' Our humanity said, 'Keep him back from instant death,' and humanity triumphed. The bell-rope reaching to the locomotive in the English railway train is on the outside of the car and near the roof, and difficult to rcaqb. I gave it two or three stout pulls, but there was no blacking of speed. Another passenger repeated the attempt without getting any recognition. We nriyht as well have tiied to stop a whirlwind by pulling a boy's kite-string. When an English engineer starts his train lie stops for nothing short of a collision, and the bellrope along the outside edges of the car i^. only to make passengers feel comfortable at the idea that they can stop the train if they want to, and a^ it is not once in a thousand times anyone is willing to risk his arm and reach out of the window long enough to work the rope, The Delusion is Seldom Broken. To rid ourselves of our dangerous associate seemed impossible. Then there came a struggle as to which should have supremacy of that car, right reason, or dementia. The demoniac moved around the ear as if it belonged to him and all the rest of us were intruders. Then ho dropped in convulsions across the lap of one of the passengers. At this moment, when we thought the horror had climacterated, the tragedy was intensified. We plunged into the midnight darkness of one of tho^e long tunnels for which English railway tra\el is celebrated. Minutes seemed hours. Canyon imagine a worse position than to be fastened in a railway carriage, 8 feet by 6, in a tunnel of complete darkness, with a maniac ? May the occurrence never be repeated. We knew not what moment he might dash upon us or in what way. We waited for the light, and waited while the air lifted upon the scalp and the blood ran cold. When at last the light looked in through the , windows we found the afflicted man lying helpless across the lap of one of the passengers. When the train halted it did not take us long, after handing over the unfortunate for medical treatment, to disembark and move into another car. We never before realised how much one loses when he loses his reason. Ko wonder that the Man of Sox-rows had his deepest sympathies stirred for the demoniac of Gadara. Morning, noon and night, thank God for the equipoise of your mental faculties.