GREAT RAILWAY DISASTER IN IRELAND. AN EXCURSION TRAIN WRECKED. LOSS OF 72 LIVES. VIVID DESCRIPTIONS BY PASSENGERS. "RAILWAY OFFICIALS UNDER ARREST.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 388, 27 July 1889, Page 6

GREAT RAILWAY DISASTER IN IRELAND. AN EXCURSION TRAIN WRECKED. LOSS OF 72 LIVES. VIVID DESCRIPTIONS BY PASSENGERS. " RAILWAY OFFICIALS UNDER ARREST.

A t« mi. way accident of a mofeb appalling ' character occurred in the TMorth of Ireland on June 12th, the number killed, and in- i ' jured being; far beyond the ioras in any disaster ot the kind in bhe United Kingdom iov very many yeaus. An additional dementi of sadness in connection with the accident is the ciicumstance. that, bho dead includes a very lavjre proportion of ehildion, the excursion being the annual outing iv connection with a church in Armagh. The circumstances ot the disaster arc as follows : — At ten o'clock a long train, heavily laden, lcit Armagh for Wan onpoint, with tho children of tho Wcsluyan Church ."Sunday-school, their teacher?, relatives, and friends, ■ Surgeon-Major Lynd, tho superintendent of the school, beinrj with them. The childien jiatchcd in proCbSiion through tho streets -with bands and banners. Outside tho city thcro it. a long rising embankment, and as the train proceeded—there was only one train ab iirst — the engine driver and fireman iound that the locomotive was unable to pull tho weight behind it. The train wis- consequently stopped and several carriages were unlinked, the idea being for the engine to take on the hrst part of the train to the next station, and <iion return for the remaining carriages. Those that were to be left behind wore on an incline, but tho railway ollicials placed btoucs behind the wheelb, thinkiui; that this would pi event them x'rom running back. Ah it started from tho now reduced train the locomotive gave the entire brain a shunt, which knocked away the stones and caused the unlinked carriages to commence lolling down the decline towards Armagh. As the carriages proceeded the velocity, of couise, increased tremendously, and when about a mile and a half irom Atmagh they met tho ordinary passenger train which left that city ab 10.35 a.m The lesulb of the collision was appalling, and cannot be adequately described. The engine of the ordinary train was thrown oil' the rails, and the driver and fireman had a marvellous escape, but tho carriages containing the children were smashed into matchwood, many of bhe little ones being killed instantaneously, while others were so shockingly itemed that death came as a happy release.

THE CRIES AND GROANS WERE FEARFUL, while the wrecked carriages with the dead and mutilated bodies formed a heartrending spectacle. A gentleman who was in the ordinary train ghes the following account. He says : •' Our train left Armagh at the ordinary time, and wo had pot about two miles ont&ide Armagh, or about midway between that station and Ilamilionsbawn, when to our consternation and alarm we noticed a number of carriages, with ever increasing velocity, coming down the incline towards us. The driver at once shut oft" steam, and had barely brought our train to a standstill, the work of a moment or so, when the carriages dashed intoour train with lemendous force. Our passengers of course received a great fhock, but, being to a certain extent prepared for it, no one, strange to say, was seriously injured. On the other, hand, the excursion carnages were smashed into pieces, and becamo simply a mass of debris. The engino of our train, which was thrown oil the lailsbythe force of the collision, now lies on her side on the bank. The driver, I'at Murphy, and tho fiieman, William Herd, had a most miraculous escape. The latter jumped off the engine just as the escaped carrajjes were en us, and sustained a fractuie of the foot. He shouted several times to the driver to jump off al.so, but the latter got on to the top of the tender, and fortunately escaped being killed, as the tender and all the carnages remained on the rails. The passengers then alighted, and found to their hou'or threo of the four carriages immediately in front of oui train lying scattered about in fragments, and children, both boys and girls, lying dead among the debris. All of us- at once set to work to extricate the dead and injured, and the scenes •which took place I shall never forget. The screams of the injured childicn were heart-rending, and the moans of the dying something awful, The dead weic tenderly placed on the bank, and the injiucd were removed as gently as possible to the most conitortable places we could find, and supplied witn ! water. Up to the hour I left lifty-six dead bodies had been recovered and removed to the railway station. Lai go ' ciowds from Armagh had gatheicd at the spot, and the scenes which occurred as parents identified the remains of their children were among the roost painful and [ pathetic that it is possible to conceive."

SUDDEN DEATH OF A HORRIFIED SPECTATOR, During the afternoon, says a correspondent., crowds of people visited the spot, among others being 1 a man named Hughes, a cardi'ivor by profession, who, when he reached the placo was so overcome by the sight that lie died on the spot, and hit body was taken back into Armagh by one of the many vehicles requisitioned to convey the dead and wounded into the city. Some touching sLoiies are nariated. One man, who was accompanied by his two little girls, and found lying with a horiid wound on his head. On being propped up and a liUlo brandy being administered, he pointed in thediicction of his two little children, already past aid, whose corpses were lying beside him, and said, " Do what you can for them ; don't mind me." They were his last words, for the nex'j moment ho dropped dead.

MAG ISTEItt AL EXAM IN ATION. In the evening, Joseph Elliott) (clerk in t/ho traffic manager's ollico at Armagh,) William Mooihead (assistant guard), Thomas Mugrath (engine driver), and Henry Parkinson (fireman of the excursion tiain), were brought U p under airest before Mr Townsend, R.M.. at Armagh, charged with having by negligence and misbehaviour caused the death of £$anmol Steel, petty sessions clerk, Formal evidence as to the accident having been given, the prjsonors were remanded in custody for three days.

ACCOUNTS BY SURVIVORS. Mr John S. Riggs, a merchant, who was one of the excursionists, stated in an interview with a representative that the whole mistako occurred in starting the train with an engine that was not of sufficient power to draw it. • Before we wore two miles out,' ho said, 'we noticed that the engine had begun to labour, and I said in a joking way to some of f ,he pas&engeis. 'we will have to got out and push hor.' I put my head out of the ,cai viage window to see what was wrong, and I heiard somebody say,

•There is no steam.' We then moved I very slowly, and after a bit stopped j altogether. Before this occurred, we saw some porters running back and placing some Btonos along the line to stop the progress ot the carriages back to Armagh. There was afc. this time a slight concussion, as if the engine had been used to push tho first part of the train back to velie\ c the couplings. Just then we began to move backwards*. A lady remarked to mo that we were going back, and that she was alraid there was something wrong. I told ,her to keep quiet, and that it .would be all right. I then paw n man jump out of the train, and he foil against tho embankment and rolled hick to the line, the wheels passing within a foot of his head. Tho velocity of the carriages then began to increase, and we came down tho incline at a terrible rate. The people in the fields began to fhout that tho people would be killed, and the lady again baid she would go out. I calmed her as well as I could, but «ho lumped up and got hnlf-way out ot the carriage, when I pulled her back Afc that time I saw a man named Edward. Reilly jump out and escape. Tho train then crashed into something, but what it was I could not see at the time. I know now that it was the engine of tho other train. The fiist carriage was completely telescoped, and a great many deaths occuu;ed in that carriage. As soon as I got the people out of the carriage I wain, I ruehed up to where T saw the people lying in a heap under the debris. 1 nevet witnessed such a scene. The engineman was afraid that a fne would tako place, and he set to and put out the fire. * Tho people I ?aw were most ut>clese, and they did little or nothing. Until the police came up bheic was> hardly a man to do anything. Thoro must have been eighty killed altogether." The Rev. W. S. McKoe, Methodist minister, who is one of the injured, paid : — We got on well enough until we got to the incline nearHamiltonsbawn Station. When coming up to that place I noticed thai the train was going slowly, and on looking out we saw that the engine was not able to take us over the incline. The moment the tiain stopped they did not try to work it on. Somebody rushed down to the end and asked thfc guard to put on the biake and prop tho wheels. They propped a few of the wheels with a lew pebbles. There was nob the slightest attempt made to brako her, and we tore down the incline at a tearful rate. Some ot the parties wanted to jump out, and I advised them to remain where they were, and not knowing tho line well, I said probably something would dtop us. Someone ciied out, " We will mecfc tho twenty to eleven train," and the woids wore hardly out of his mouth when we ran into the other train, and William McMullen, son ot one ot the superintendents of tho excursion paity, was killed insbantareously, as were also some four or five others in the cariiajjc. i got both my legs crushed and was scalded with steam, and afterwards I fell down the embankment. Theie was the most culpable negligence on the part of the lailway company. The doctors liuiricd out almost immediately, but it wn& not by the act of the railway company that they came. Thcie must be between sixty and eighty people killed. The correspondent adds that the dead bodies have not yet all been bi ought into the city, and the work of identification goes on in the Market House and the Tontine. An inquest was opened in tiie (Jtand Juiyroom, and was adjourned alter the jury had viowed the bodie.*. Seventy two deaths have been repotted to the coroner. Five of them took place on Wednesday in the Royal Infirmaiy. Amongst those who were injured are Mr and Mrs J. L\ Vallclly, of Manchester, who were spending a holiday in li eland.

A THRILLING STORY 7 " is told of a private in the Royal Irish Fusiliers, named Cox, a hnc, powerful fellow, who, when he saw that a collision was imminent, gob upon the footplate of the carriage in which he had been previously seated, and dropped tour children to fche &ide ol the railway, where they were afterwards picked up uninjured. He appealed to Mr Steele, petty .sessions clerk, and to others to climb out and let him drop them, but they refused. He then jumped ofl himself, jnfj'fcin time to save himself. He afterwards took part in the work of extricating the dead and wounded. The majoiity of the deaths in the excursion train are confined to the last carnage, which contained about 100 people. The beautiful veauher of Thursday only seemed a mockery in Armagh, which i& desolate and sorrow f ul. It was only on Thuisday that the townsfolk realised to he full the bitter meaning of the 1 ail way tragedy enacted at their doors on Wednesday. There weic houses in every street ha.i ng the blinds drawn down | to betoken that somebody who was near and dear had been on the unioitunate tiain. The shops wcio cither shut, or kept open their door ab a matter ot form, but nobody thought of business. People gathoied at the sticeo coiners to coniide to each other their sorrows and to exchange accounts ot how exactly the accident happened. The mi&ts which at first clouded tne stoiy oi the di&a&ter have now, tor the mofct paib, been cleared away.

INCIDENTS AND ESCAPES. Never was there an accident embracing so many miraculous escapes. These escapes aie now being iccounted on every hand, and he or she v, ho came through without injury is reckoned something fortunate or heroic. The case of the Rev. W. S, McKeo, a Methodist minister in Armagh, of which particulars arc given above, illusfciatcs the almost miraculous manner in which some lived to soo all thoir neighbouis die, and then be pulled from among their dead bodies to safety. But there were other escapes quite as miraculous as that ot Mr McKee, as, for instance, the case of a young fellow who got pitched below tho engine, and came out hugely scared, but quite unhurt. If many escaped, however, many did not, and particularly sad reading is this, that a man named Cielldnd, hit wife, and three children were all crushed to death in a heap. Robert John Irwin, a young mechanic, was with his sweetheart, Annie Bell, and the two were bent upon a day's outing at Warrenpoint, which place neither will over see. No mention, again, has ever been made of tho fact that Charles Neal, a keeper in a lunatic asylum, and his wife, who werekilled simultaneously, have left a young family practically dependent on charity. The saddost facts ol the accident are only becoming known, for it is only when all the bodies have been identified that it has come to bo known how very many girlsjbordering upon or ju&t entering into womanhood have met their deaths. Two sisters, Rowan tree, farmer's daughters from the country, are numbered with the dead ; so are tho Misses McFarlane, residents in the town of Armagh, and a Miss Simpson, who is said to havo been very pretty. A curious thing about the fatality which has overtaken a man named William Burke is that his elder brother was also killed in a railw ay accident not very long ago, while his father was drowned, Instances could be multiplied to convey, if tho whole meaning could be conveyed in words, the true ghastliness ot a .^ccne in which human lite counted as nothing ; but only those who wore actual witnesses know tho gruesome reality.

VILE TRANSACTIONS. " , ' Ib is admitted on every' hand that there was a fine vigour about) the work of tho rescue party j that the medical men espe cially toiled like heroes to save expiring life. Unfortunately, men and women burning to rescue their fellow men and women were nob the only persons present. Ib was declared on Thursday, on authority which cannot very well be impeached, that folk put in an appearance, not to aid, but to plunder tho passengers The statement irf not without proof, for a solicitor well known in Armagh, and having a large practice, has occasion to lament the disappearance of a watch. To facilitate his movements in dragging suffering: people from under the ruins of the train, he threw olf his coat and vest. When he got these articles of clothing again, he found that the watch pocket ' bad been emptied 01 its contents. The rascals were not contented with plundering a stray vest, but they must needs take the little watch and the gold earrings from the body of a young married woman, by name Connolly. These vile transactions were not known at the time — ac, indeed, how could they? — but now that they have come to the public ear, they have caused mutterings to leap from the lips of honest men " Scamps like bhef-e might well enough hare been lynched," said a kindly, middle-aged man : and the crowd about him echoed his woids.I The coroner for Aimagh has taken care to p\it in a \>]iica of safety such trifles of properly as .-brewed the embankment after the rcmovnlbt tho dead and tho injured. Whata collection of hats and bags, and boots and umbroilas, and things of all kinds and sorts, it is that occupies one corner of the Tontinerooms, to which many of the dead bodies were conveyed for identification, but have now been removed ! Fathers and mothers "came turning over and over the&e articles, to see whether from the depth of the heap there might be found a relic of the doparted. They were touching pictures these searches ; and the searches were many a time vain.

THE TOTAL DEATH-ROLL. An Armagh correspondent telegraphs :—: — A boy named Cleland, whose father, mother and two brothers were killed in the disaster on Wednesday, died at the County Infirmary here on Thursday, his death bringing the list of killed up to seventy-four. Several others are not expected to recover. The Country Infirmary presented a saddening spectacle yesterday, bein^ surrounded by anxious friends of the injured persons within, and inquirers for missing children who cannot bo found.

NAMES OF THE KILLED. A Inter telegram says, there have been sixty-four bodies identified, of which the following is a complete list, and eight not identified : —Samuel M. Ste^l, Mina liounUee, W. R. MeMullon, W. \Vi\ll>er, 'Bella Rountree, Mary Jenkinson, John Mallow, Margate b Clehmd, lloberb John- Jcwin, Ann 8011, Minnie Boyd, -Joseph Johnston, Betsey Wiilun, A»nes .Hall^ Eliza ,Johnsbon, Margaret Me Lure, Catherine Hurray, Jane .Thompson, John Hughes, Thomas Henderson, Charles Neill, Minnie Edwardij, David Edwards, Samuel Cloland, Margaret Patterson, Mary Conway, Matgaieb Stevenson, J. McCann, Mr and Mrs Mitchell (Scotch - street) arid their son, John Eager, Serah Isabella Steel, W. W. Holland, Margaret Gibson, M"ary Orr, Jane Orr, Minnie Murdoch, Henry Jenkipson and hi 1 ? wife Mary, Mrs Joseph M'Cann, Mrs ISTeill, Mary Audeison, Sarah Carroll, James Cleland, lloberb Cleland, Wilholmina Reilly, Margaret M'Veigh, Ellen Watt, Mary Johnston-, William Burke, Albert E. Robinson, Cathleen Irvvin, Eugene Simpson, Ernest Logue, Jsabella MTarland, Martha M'Farland, ElizaSloane, Matilda Robinson, Laura Sco<"'C Latimer, Agnes Paikes, and W. Crozier, besides eight not identified.