The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-03-18 00:00:00

TERRIBLE RAILWAY !ACCIDENT IN
AMERICA.

'A
dispatch from Poughkeepsie, dated the 24th ult.,
and published by the New York journals, states that
on the previous evening a terrible accident occurred to
an express train. On nearing the little hamlet of South
Wallingford, thirteen miles from Rutland, a broken
rail was encountered. The engine parsed safely over,
but the passenger and sleeping car were both thrown
from the track. The passenger car remained on the
road-bed, but the sleeping car, with its slumbering
occupants, upset, and went rolling down a twenty-five
foot embankment, landing in a marble yard. The oar
was wrecked, and the passengers being thrown from
their berths by the shock, a painful scene ensued.
yThooeuil)da:maesnsgisetresdwbeyretheoscasepfirnogmftrhome
ptahse.
seiger car and the villagers attracted to the spot, many
It was nearly midnight, and the weather was in-
tenselyc ar
a 8
bcoestldihe
of them in their frantic haste coming forth with only
their night clothing to shield them from the keen air.
As fast as the injured were taken out they were re-
moved to places of safety in the depot building. It
soon became evident that the car was on fire, and
before the work of rescue was complete Mr. Bissell,
of the Sherman House, Chicago, who with his son
occupied a berth in the forward end of the sleeping-
cer, got safely out, but being made aware that his son
was still in the burning car went back to save him,
and being overpowered by the smoke was burned to
death. The position of the charred remains howed
that the father must have been overcome while entering
the window, as the body was found inside the car and
the feet projecting through the window* The charred
body of young Bissell was also found, and he had
evidently been suffocated in the attempt to escape.
Nearly all the passengers in the car were more or less
injured.
THE HEALTH OF VARIOUS
OCCUPATIONS.
The question has often been discussed which of the
various callings to which men devote themselves is
most healthy. Very different answers have been
given by different inquirers; but the cause of this
diversity has been the absence of precise statistics.
In these days, when registration has been for more
than a generation compulsory, it is possible to
arrive at something like a definite conclusion; and
in a recent report, summing up the results of ten
years of registration, Dr. Farr makes the attempt.
In ordinary circumstances, one would naturally
conclude that farmers and agricultural labourers,
who live so much in the open air, and whose
physical energies are so constantly exercised without
being overtaxed, would be among the healthiest of the
community. But Radical orators have so accustomed
us to dismal descriptions of the lot of the peasant that
most people will suspect that he at least cln hardly
derive the full advantages of his situation. Dr. Far;
however, confirms the natural opinion on the matter.
According to him, farmers and agricultural labourers,
if not the healthiest of all classes, stand in the first
rank. Even those engaged in manufactures are no
longer exceptionally unhealthy—a fact which Dr. Farr
very properly attributes to the philanthropic legisla-
tion due to Lord Shaftsbury and those who have
worked with him in the course of sanitary improve-
ment. After the age of 35, earthenware manufac-
ture is responsible for a death-rate nearly double that of
any other trade; and after 45, metal-working and
coach-making are very fatal. Deaths are terribly fre-
quent spacing publicans, for which Dr. Farr blames too
frequent tippling. Tailors, drapers, and hairdressers
are also very unhealthy. After 45, physicians and
surgeons stand well; but they are eclipsed by clergy-
men and barristers. From such results it would be
easy to formulate a law, summing up the main facts.
Profound changes, however, would be effected by more
rigorous compliance with certain obvious and now
well-known hygienic conditions.—Globe.

MR. J. COWEN, M.P., ON FRENCH
SOCIETY.
At a recent public meeting, held in Newcastle-on-
Tyne, at which it was resolved to call upon the Town
Council to purchase the Elswick Hall Estate for a free
public park, a letter was rea4 from Mr. Cowen M.P.,
in which he said :—" I spent the greater pare of the
last recess in and around a country town in France.
The population of the place was only 43,000. There
were no manufactures. The inhabitants chiefly were
interested and engaged in the growth of vines, and the
raising of agricultural produce. Yet in this third-rate
French town there was a public library, open every
day in the week to the people, free, containing nearly
50,000 books; there was a museum and an art gallery
much superior to anything in Newcastle, also free and
open daily; and there were zoological gardens, with a
good collection of birds and animals, equally open and
free. In addition to two miles of beautiful boulevards,
which constitutes a magnificent promenade, there is a
spacious public park four times the size of the one at
Elswick, kept in excellent order, and constantly open
free to the people. All over the town there are open
spaces, in many instances planted with trees, shrubs,
and flowers. The aggregate wealth of the town lam
referring to is very much inferior to that of Newcastle,
and within the last five years it has not only been sub-
jected to the ravages of war, but was in the occupation
of a hostile army for some weeks. Notwithstanding
the heavy demands made upon the inhabitants by the
war, the public institutions were never shut; and some
public buildings' infinitely superior in point of archi-
tectural beauty to anything we have in the North of
England, that were in progress in 1870, have been
completed. Although residing in that locality for
nearly three months, I never saw one drunken person?'