PERILS OF PORTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 281, 21 November 1908, Page 3

PERILS OF PORTERS.

DANGERS MKT WITH ON KAILWAY VLATKOKMS. Kngine-drivers often perish at ilie post of duty; liremen run the same risk; guards share the chances of derailment or oollision; platelayers arc run over in fogs or thick weather. But porters are exposed to muie o!' Liiese dangers. It would st'em tha'tlher work is by far the .safest of all the various branches of railway employment. Except in small stations, when; tiie porter may have to do coupling and .hunting work, lie ha« nothing to do with the actual running of the train:?. [ and it is a fact that the death-roll from' accident is .smaller among railway porters than in any branch of the railway i army. Even so the occupation is not witiit out its perils. It must, however, be t confessed that the accidents which befall porters are, most of them, caused L , by the carelessness and thoughtlessness L of railway passengers. For instance, there is the passenger who llings open i the door <of his compartment before the train has come to a standstill. Some little time ago a porter was badly dam* . aged in this way at Waterloo Station, London. An Oxford undergraduate dung open the door before the train stopped, and a porter was bowled over ' witli such force that he was laid up for ; a week, lie sued for compensation at } the Sonthwark County Court, but -Judge Addison decided it was his own. fault. The careless traveller who llings things out 01 the window of a moving train is a source of danger to the porter. A curious case occurred some time ago j at a small "Welsh station. As the Holyhead mail came roaring through, travelling at nearly fifty miles an hour, a man in the train ilung a large bag full of oranges. The fruit was meant for a relative of passenger, who was standing on the platform (at least, so the passenger averred, when sued), but it hit a porter with a force estimated at three hundredweight. The blow knocked the man senseless and nearly killed him, and he afterwards recovered heavy damages from the man who threw the oranges. Bottles are most terrible uiissil-es when Hung from a train window. All the companies post notices warning | passengers against this offence, yet even so a signalman had his liuad cut open only a few weeks ago by an empty ginger beer bottle. Eagerness to secure a tip caused the death of a railway porter at -Victoria ! Underground station, London. | A young naval oilicer arriving at Victoria from Chatnani gave his bag to an outside porter to carry round to the District station. Arriving on the platform just as the train was starting, he jumped in and began feeling for money. He had thick gloves -on, and the nimble sixpence eluded him. The porter clung to the footboard. Almost instantly the train entered the tunnel. The unfortunate .porter's shoulder struck against the side wall. He was twilled round, torn from his hold, and instantly crushed between train and tunnel. The porter's principal work is, of course, the handling of luggage, and occasionally the baggage is of such a nature that handling it entails great risk. At Clapham Junction a porter had to load several hives of bees into the van. He was putting 'in the last when the bottom fell out, and thousands of furious insects swarmed all over the sta turn.

There were about fifty people oa the platform, and the whole crowd promptly stampeded. The porters got the worst of it. Several were badly stung. The porter has also at times to act as cattle-drover, and here, again, he sometimes runs heavy risks. At Ascot Station one day, in the winter of 100(1, a bullock -suddenly went mad and charged the staff. They r an for their lives, and the bullock galloped madly up the line towards Sunningdale. The stationmaster and porter went in chase. The brute turned on them, and they only just escaped by jumping over the fence at the edge of the line. The mad beast eventually had to be shot. A railway porter must be a fairly strong man and also clever at handling heavy baggage. The size and weight of the steelbound trunks which Americans bring over with them is appalling. Many an unfortunate porter has been disabled for life by strains incurred when trying to put heavy baggage of this kind on the roof of a cab. As unpleasant an experience as ever befell a porter is related in a Cingale.-.. paper. A train arrived at Watagoda Station, one truck of which was full ot fruit.' A porter was busy unloading it, when, as he picked up a great bunch of bananas, a huge cobra slid out of it. Tii. 1 . oricr gave a yell of fright, jumped tMjkwards, ami lell at lull length on ilie platform. The deadly reptile was coiling to strike when anotner porter killed it with a crowbar. t* r