EXTRAORDINARY CAB ACCIDENT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1824, 4 December 1888, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY CAB ACCIDENT.

A Melbourne cabman named John Orange has gone through an experience which wo.uld hare cose most men their live*, bub Orange survives to give the details of a most extra* ordinary accident! Orange was engaged by two gentlemen to drive them to and from a dinner party which was givenJat TPorak;on Friday night. By the time the party broke up Orange had managed to make himself so iiatoxiea ted that his. if ares proposed, to walk home-in preference to trusting themselves to , his care, He therefore started for town with 'Bishansom bylhimself. Ha got! completely confused as to the road he should take, and about midnight’ he found himself inwpad* dojok Yam.. He nearly drove into . a ehaft 40ft deep 1 , which has been need as a well for a windmill, hut escaped by taking a sharp .turn.!while, he . was, on .the, very. edge. He 'tlfeh; got .into 5 a very much wotse poii- 1 tion, though he was unaware of it at the time.dHewap .driving on the edge; iof an embankment 80ft high, sloping into the Xarfaj wjienhedeoided to rethrn the way be had oothe! ' 'He endeavored to turn ( his horse, and the retnlt ; Was that horse, cab, and all iwsre'v'precipitated! over the embankment. Horse, and oah rolled over and over, and dashed into the river at the spot where it runs 26ft deejK By a, stroke of good luck Orange beoane.unseated halfway down the .embankment, and, was safely, deposited on a 'ledgeMherewwide, where he slumbered till the morning. It was only on awaking at day. light 5 that he realised what had happened. He went and told his story at the Toorak police station, when ,the: river was dragged thcab was fished up from the bottom, and strange to say, was not much injured, ' Stranger still, the horse was found to have escaped, and was discovered,' somewhat knocked about, grazing on the opposite bank -of the river. The only explanation as to how the horse got free is that when ( the cab struck*.the water it floated for afowsticond*, and the horse’s haunches went under. ' Thu weight pf the animal broke the girth, and, the .horse linking in ’.a, backward direction, the collar passed’over his head and pulled off the winkers. ’ Finding himself free, ho struck out for the shore, ; while the cab ; slowly, sank to the bottoni.. : . i