TERRIBLE ADVENTURE OF A SOMNAMBULIST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2394, 12 November 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

TERRIBLE ADVENTURE OF A SOMNAMBULIST.

An engineer on the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad noticed, one night recently, as his engine was travelling at a rapid pace near Analomink, something white in his cow-catcher. He climbed out and walked along the guard-rail to the smokestack. Peering over and looking down on the pilot, lie was horrified to see the blanched face of a young woman turned upward, with terror in her eyes, while she grasped the bars of the cow-catcher to hold herself oil her perilous perch. She was in her night-dress. The engineer hastened back and reversed his engine. When it had come to a standstill he hurried out and with difficulty loosened the woman's grasp on the bars. It was some time before she recovered sufficiently to give any account of herself. She then said that her name was Susan Cooley, the daughter of a well-known resident of Analomink. She is a somnambulist, and she must have got up in her sleep, walked down to the railroad, and dimed upon the cowcatcher unobserved while the train was standing at the station. The first she knew was when she waa awakened by the whistling of the engine It was then some time before she realised where she was, and when the knowledge of her situation came to her she became paralysed with fright, and seized the pilot-bars mechanically. She was sent home.