The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-02 00:00:00

Cke 3tourbribge 'Tartar.

SATURDAY, JANUARY, 2nd, 1874.

LEGACIES OF THE OLD YEAR.

Eighteen hundred and seventy-four was with- ,
in a week of its termination when it contributed
to history one or two occurrences which will
cause it long to be associated with gloomy
memories. Up to Christmas Eve we had got
through the year with only two railway catas-
trophes of any moment—one on the North Bri-
tish, and the other on the Great Eastern Rail way.
The last-mentioned calamity was, indeed
unprecedented in its surroundings, for two trains
met upon a single line, and battered each other
to fragments. But on Christmas Eve it was the
misfortune of the Great Western line to be the
scene of one of the most awful incidents which
has ever happened in the history of English
railways. The well-appointed service of that
powerful corporation is known throughout the
length and breadth of the land. The roomy
and commodious carriages, the freedom from
oscillation whilst travelling, the splendidly-
• finished engines, and the high rate of speed, are
familiar to all who have had occasion—and their
name is legion—to book from the terminus at
• Paddington. At Christmas there is always a
great increase of passenger traffic, and the
resources of every railway company are taxed to
the utmost to meet the demands which are made
upon their means of transport. It is a time
when traditionally friends and relatives meet in
happy re-unions, and in comfortable rooms and
• in front of blazing fires, forgkit, if oury for a few
hour, the bard cold world outside, and talk of
bygone times, and in some cases perhaps of
happier days. Pleasant 1.1 nticipations of the
meeting exist for weeks on both sides. Child.'
hood's old home has been decorated with holly
and cypress, rooms have been, swept and gar-
nished, and the choicest things which the family
can afford have been placed upon the table. Ana
the expected one, on his part, has bought some
novelty in the big town where he has settled,
and delights to dwell upon the expressions of
pleased surprise with which it will be received
by his country friends. The train leaves the
vast station at Paddington at ten o'clock on a
December morning, crowded in every compart-
ment. Intending passengers pass up and down
its entire length before they can get a seat, so
thronged are the carriages at Christmastide.
Some, it may be cannot go by it at all, for it is
filled to its utmost capacity, and they are told
that they must wait until the next train. At
length the whistle of the guard sounds; the two
engines, all adorned with Christmas greenery,
respond to the signal; the last parting adieus
have been waved, and out streams the train upon
its last journey. Soon they clear away from the
west end of London, and bowl merrily along
down through Berkshire, and then get into the
county of Oxford. At such a time there is a
freemasonary amongst the passengers which is
totally unknown at other seasons of the year.
People who have never seen each other in their
lives before throw off the usually cold formalities
of travelling, and wish each other "A merry
Christmas." "The compliments of the season
to you." " The same to you, Sir," passes from
mouth and from carriage to carriage. They are
whirled along at a splendid speed, every mile
seeming to decrease the distance between them
and their friends whom they hope to meet. It
never crosses the mind of a single person in the
jovial crowd that the rushing train is swiftly
carrying them on to death, and that they will
never leave alive the carriage which they so gaily
entered. Suddenly, when the journey has been
in progress only two hours, there is, a tremendous
jolt, then a multitudinous crash as one carriage
after another leaps high into the air, and is then
crushed like mai chwood ; the thread of life has
been snapped in a moment in the cases of more
than thirty of the luckless travellers, scores are
shrieking in agony, and streaming with blood,
while the survival; scramble from the wreck,
and gaze stupefied with terror upon a scene as
ghastly as was ever presented in a peaceful land,
and upon the eve of a solemn Christian festival.
The dead are carried one after another-to a mill
close by only a few minutes before they had been
interchanging sentiments, and looking forward
to life's enjoyments, whieh in the case of many
of them might have lasted for another half
century. Now, in the twinkling of an eye life
itself had been cut short; "the silver cord was
loosed, the golden bowl was broke ;" and nothing
remained to be done but for loving hands I
reverently to perform the last kind offices, and
to bid an eternal farewell to those who had been
so unexpectedly snatched from their midst.
The Bignall Hill Colliery explosion, on the
same day, in which seventeen hard-working men
were suddenly launched into eternity pales in
magnitude before the Great Western Railway
holocaust, but it is no less a calamity for the
wives and families of the slain, It is the old,
old story, that "men must work, and women
must weep." Here on the railway, and in the
coal mine, were fifty persons on Christmas-Eve
with whom life's precious link was rudely broken.
Those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell were
not more sinful than those who were spared ;
and we may depend upon it that there was no-
thing in the past lives of these fifty victims to
merit the penalty of death—a penalty meted out
by human justice only to those who have taken
life itself, and who, by the stern decrees of the
law, are declared too bad to be allowed to live.
What a Christmas Day it must have been in the
homes of these unfortunates ! How the bells,
merrily ringing in the morning, must have
sounded like so many dirges, and the chimes
like so many funeral knells! How many must
have exclaimed in anguish—" ! for a touch of
the vanished hand, and a sound of the voice that
is still I" Verily the old year has suddenly
gathered to it some most mournful memories.
Its closing hours will by hu adreds be associated
with awful calamities which will cast an irre-
movable gloom over the remainder of life. rhere
is always something touching in the departure of
the year. In its last hour the very moments are
counted by thousands who watch it out, and then
when the last stroke of midnight has died away
amid the boundless realms of space, the
exclamation " Gone l" comes almost involuntarily
from the lips. Yes, it has gone to join the long
roll of these which Time has gathered together
since the world began. It has gene 'levier to re-
turn to the children of men—gone with all its
records of good and bad deeds, of lost oppork
unities, and ‘vasted lives. Yet no tiniq is per-
mitted for useless regrets. The saine bells
which have struck out the old year an solemn
notes, change into a peal of melody for the new
oue which has dawned; the wail of woe for the
departed is turned into a song of congratulation
to its succLsso-. And when the early morning
has chased away the shadows of the night, we
utter no laments over that which has passed
away, but people salute each et!, er cheerily, and
wish on every hand, as we do now aur readers,
"A Happy New Year."