SERIOUS COACH ACCIDENT IN UPPER QUEEN STREET.

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 147, 17 April 1873, Page 2

SERIOUS COACH ACCIDENT IN UPPER QUEEN STREET.

Aiiout about ten o'clock yesterday morning, just as the streets were beginning to be tilled by vehicles and passengers about to st.v t for the racecourse, a very serious accident happened in Upper Queen iStieet. It seems tint the Paninure and Ifowiek coach, belonging to Messis Loomb & Co, and drhen by Mr Loomb himself, was beginning the descent of the steep decline, when the reins broke. The horses, which wuro only h.u nesseel with collars and traces, ami without any luck bieeching, became f lightened, and quickened their dowmv.ud course. Seeing he was powerless to anest them, Mr Loomb at once jumped off, and called to his bou, who was on the coach beside him, to follow his example. The father escaped without injury, but the wheel of the coacli passed over the leg ot the boy, bruising it badly, but not breaking it as was repotted at the time. One of the passengers who w&s sitting near the driver then succeeded in putting on the break*, and thus in some degree moderated the pace at which the horses wcie going. By this time the people who throngul the upper part of Lower Qiiejn Street had caught sight of the coach coming towards them dineiless, and numbcis of them, with good intentions no doabt, ran to meet the runaways, at the same tune shouting and holding up their hands with a view to making the animals stop. Instead of this they became mote alanued, and then the poisons inside and outside, feaifulof a collision, threw themselves one after another from the vehicle. One gentleman, the same it is stated who applied the break, sti uck his knee against some projection as he was in the act of jumping, and injured the knee-cap badly. Several of the others met with slight contusions in their fall. One passenger a woman named Mary Anderson, was the last left in the coach, being afraid to follow the example of the others. When opposite the Army and Navy Hotel she howe\ er sprajfc^fc, rolling over on alighting, and leceiviug seveie injunCs," The bystanders immediately ran to her assistance, aud she was carried into Mr Rush brook's di apery establishment in a state of insensibility. From there she was removed to Mr Sandall's, butcher, at the bottom of Waketield street, where she was attended by Dr JJwson and Lee. Her shoulder bone was found to be broken, and her face was very much cut and bruised. After passing the new Market the coach swerved over to the west side of the street, and took to the pathway by Messenger's, the meat salesman. Passing under his verandah, the top of the vehicle came in violent contact with the woodwoi k, separating it fiom the verandah of Smith' 3 Cash Palace I'ait of the structure was violently I detached and came down with a ciash on to the footpath, the coacli at the same time being brought to sudden stand. The horses, with the fore-wheels aud pole, turned the coiner of Victoria street and stopped opposite Quick's coach-yard in lilhott street, where they had, it appears, been stabled for some tune past Uonsuleiing the crowded state of the street at the time of the occurrence, it is little short of a miracle that no one was killed. The damage to the coach was trifling, while the hoiscs escaped unhurt. — Crui.f.