The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-02-26 00:00:00

AN ALARMING INCIDENT.

A rather unusual accident, which, however, did not
happily have a fatal denouement for the two persons
whose lives were endangered through it, occurred a
few days ago in a Parkian suburb (says the Evening
Standard.) An innkeeper residing at Courcelles was
engaged in closing his house towards midnight, when
he perceived, to use his expression, a conflagration
on wheels coming along the road. He called the at-
tention of one of his men to this singular apparition of
moving flames from which, as it came rapidly nearer,
heartrending cries for help were heard to proceed,
accompained by the terrified neighing of a horse.
The vehicle on fire was recognised a moment later as
belonging to a laundress who, with her husband, had
left the suburb in the morning for Paris. The horse,
maddened by the flames which surrounded it, had be-
come unmanageable, and the two poor creatures in the
waggon seemed destined to certain death, when the
innkeeper, an old soldier, had a happy inspiration.
Quickly fetching his gun, he loaded it, knelt down,
and waited until the conveyance was sufficiently close,
when he fired at the horse with such good effect
that the animal fell down dead. The two persons
in the waggon were promptly released from
their critical position, and the fire extinguished
by their rescuer. Fortunately neither husband
nor wife were very badly burned, and when they had
recovered from their fright they explained how the
conveyance had caught fire. They had passed the
evening with a friend in Paris, and on the return
journey both of them dozed, leaving the horse, which
knew the way home, to its own guidance. They were
roused from their nap by the animal running away,
and perceived that the waggon was on fire, the acci-
dent being caused by the young woman's shawl, which
had slipped from her shoulders, falling over one of the
lamps. But for the innkeeper and his gun, the con-
sequences of indulging in napping whilst driving
might have been far more serious than they were.

A HINT TO RAILWAY AUTHORITIES.

Land remarks :—" Why do our railway companies
neglect so obvious a source of revenue as the many
thousand acres of vacant land occupied by the sloping
sides of their cuttings and embankments? Planted
with fruit-trees or flowering shrubs, the soil would be
held together, the aspect of the line made charm-
ingly picturesque, and after a few years a certain
rental realised. Our railways would give excellent
sloping sites for strawberries on the south aspect ;
dwarf apple, pear-trees, raspberries, currants, or
gooseberries on the north and east. Lady Gten-
vine, at Dronmore, used to devote some hundred
pounds yearly to covering the high sandy and
gravelly parts of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire
roads with rhododendrons, hardy-roses, and other
shrubs, with the most charming result. It is too
much to hope that our Railway Directors will do
as much for the sake of a picturesque wayside ; but
if it can be shown that profit will result, they may
be tempted at least to make the experiment. The
plants and shrubs would not be so combustible as the
present dry grass and weeds, but all danger of ignition
would be obviated by a wire cap on the funnel, like
that used in the American locomotives. The Midland,
Great Northern, and Great Western have shown signs
of generously appreciating ideas which consern the
comfort and enjoyment of their customers, as well its
the augmentation of their dividends; and we com-
mend this suggestion to the* favourable considera-
tion."
AUTOMATIC STENOGRAPHY.

An interesting trial of a new stenographic machine
has been made in the French Chamber in the presence
of M. Gambetta and a number of other officials and
members. The mechanism, which is an Italian
invention, is worked by a kind of keyboard similar
to that of a small piano, and the stenographic
signs, not unlike those used in the ordinary
French shorthand, are automatically printed on
a continuous ribbon of paper. The signs regis-
tered of course represent sounds, irrespective of
spelling, and the machine can be used by a person
unacquainted with the language spoken. The daughter
of the inventor worked the machine successfully, taking
down a speech read at the average speed in Italian,
and one read in French by M. Gambetta, she being
ignorant of the latter language. A comparison be-
tween the speed of the machine and that of the short-
hand writers of the Chamber proved favourable to the
former. Further experiments will be made with a
view to a possible adoption of the apparatus, which
is already in use in the Italian Chambers.