The Express.
London, England, 1864-08-29 00:00:00

[Stamped, hi. AdditiamaL]

OUT OF THE SEASON.

VICTORIA-PARK ON SUNDAY.

Troveliens by the Eastern Counties—we beg par-
don, the Great Eastern Railway, know that its
London station is situate in a straggling motley
thoroughfare, wherein cheap hotels, second-rate
coffee-bowie', advertising outfitting warehouses,
and ticketting linendrapery establishments, jostle
with the minor exhibitions, the low-priced places
of entertainment, and the taring gin-hops where-
with the neighbourhood is plentifully studded.
Here and there an old over-hanging heavy gabled
mansion, with a remote date carved upon its corner
atone, or antiquity written on its wooden orna-
menu, professes to have been built by a for-
gotteni citizen, and frowns rigidly in the sunlight,
as if shocked at the vain and flaunting dwellings
at its side. But modern innovation has left its
nark upon the street, and from the ridieulons
wooden Indian making a face at the railway
station from the façade of the coffee shop bearing
his name, to the string of advertising heads which
are planted round the enterprising batter's oppo-
aide St. Leonard's Church, no opportunity seams
lost of impressing strangers with the rough-and-
ready, cheap-and-Bet-nasty, but =fastidious
tastes of the people of the district At the
corners of the narrow streets and the entrances to the
foetid courts ; banging idly about gin-shop doors,
and springing apparently from the earth directly a
cab-horse falls, or men or women fight, or a pick-
pocket or shoplifter is being walked along by the
police, stand the ragged people for whose benefit
sincere hard-working missionaries and district
visitors are appointed, churches endowed, and
schools established. They flock round the omni-
bus resting-place, and chaffer and squabble with
each other, when not insulting or begging frees
passers by. The gin-shop at the oorner °Elko
street skirting Short:ditch Station to its
south is especially favoured by thews gentry,
six of whom entered into a cheffing
match with an omnibus driver yesterday, which
the latter had provoked by the pointed sarcasm
"Ter wouldn't none o'er take wot didn't belong
to yen, if yen had a chance I dare say." It is
painful to relabs that the obtrusive attentions of a
policeman dispersed this phalanx at the very
moment of victory, and the aggressive driver was
spared an immeziniousdefest only through departing
to Hackney, Wawa hflueady-witted sharp-tongued
young opponents fiffieeto rally their forces
and follow up the advantage they had gained.
Once past the church of St. Leonard's, with its
resident undertaker, whose house windows peer into
the churchyard, and the explorer finds himself in the
Hackney-road, with evidences of the steady march of
bricks and mortar surrounding him on every aide.
Peering through the shop-windows running down
to the pavement from the houses on either side of
the way, he will not =frequently see a short flight
of iron-railed steps, a scraper, and a front door
with orthodox brass handle and black knocker,
instead of a parlour at the back of the shop. It is
not so long since this was the entrance to a per-
fectly private house, and flowers were tended and
gravel rolled, where cigars and tobacco, apples and
plums, or biscuits and cheesecakes, are bein4
' vended now. The classes formerly dwelling. '
such neighbourhoods as these have taken wing,
' era season-ticket holders' on suburbia rail-
ways, or daily riders by some far stretch-
' ing 'bus • and the sylvan sounding cot-
tages and villas, the crescents, the terraces, and
' the places, are handed over bodily to the photo-
' graphic artist, the grocer, the cheesemonger, the
pawnbroker, or the butcher. No lack of smartly
dressed people on the pavements ; great evidence
of the unpopularity of Matthaei= doctrines in
the road ; a complete show of beauty and manli-
ness—the former in startlingly vivid cape, the
latter in shirt sleeves and somnolent, or with a
clay pipe and bibulous—at the open windows
above the shops ; and a copious selection of
vehicular and equine curiosities now waiting out-
side the Durham Arms or the Rising Sun, or
speeding at good trotting match pace down the road.
Leaving an exhibition on the left, which proffers
the exciting spectacle of a coffin a thousand years
' old to people in sesych of amusement ; and follow-
ing the stream of gigs, light waggons, and tax-carts,
you crate a bridge, and are at one of the entrances
to the Victoria-park. Flower sellers, ginger beer
vendors, the eternal "fusses at a halfpenny a box,"
blind beggarsY from Bethoal-green, with abject
• manners and repulsive daughters, peripatetic stick
dealers, and street newsmen, are all hovering
about the immediate approaches to the park, but
passing through the gateway you escape these, and
inspect the poles of a gymnasium now idle, but
bearing strong evidence of pretty frequent week-
day use. To the left are seats and walks, grainy
banks and flowers in bloom, while to the
right the parterres for brilliance of colour,
taste in arrangement, and healthy beauty, might
compete with many a nobleman's show-place and
carry off the prize. Through the inner
iron gates, and up the walk whereon
lovers are strolling, children playing, and family
groups pointing out the exquisite tints of the
flower garden beyond, and you gain the park-
proper, see the temple-like dome of the magnificent
' water fountain erected by Miss Burdett Coutta, re-
mark the multitude of happy groups on the grass,
and aresurprised at the thicket-like plots of trees
already of goodly size and ample foliage.
Without drawing invidious comparisons between
the Victoria and our West-end parks, there can be
no doubt that in many particulars the former
pompanos advantages the latter do not share.
It is more exclusively pleasure-promoting
in its character and aims. Unlike the drinking
fountains in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes,
where wayfarers are not supposed to be thirsty on
Sunday—Miu Burdett Coutta's gift is in full play as
well as in constant demand. It is pleasant to see
the good-tempered green-coated park official lov-
ingly dusting its statuary, sweeping its approaches,
and helping such little ones as are scarcely able to
reach the stream to the coveted draught of water ;
and no less pleasant to hear the admiring and appre-
ciative comments of the strollers who dot the
grass, and upon whom none of the beauties of
the stately erection and its surroundings are lost,
from the clock at its summit to the graceful figures
in its alcaves, and the gaily stocked stone flower
urea about its base. " Meavina's patent invigo-
rator " is written at the end of one of the swing
boats, now lying idle on the gram, and boys walk
round it curiously, as if on the chance of its sud-
denly starting into life and their so obtaining an
eleemosynary ride. These, as well as the green
iron swings, ranged side by side at the
end of thin. long, iron pendants, as if
some giant chemist had bung up his instruments
to rum and dry—are in constant request on week-
days. The purveyors of the favourite entertain-
ment on Sunday afternoons are stationed in the
centre of the crowd yonder, and the harmonium's
strains now floating softly upon the air, proceed'
from a blind player, who, with his wife, is seated
in a little cart, in which his instrument and a
seat for two people are fixed. The pony is a
phenomenon. Evidently a tory in politics, and
having as little care for music as Sir Walter
Scott himself, he expresses his contempt for the
people crowding round him, and the strains forced
upon his ears, by a series of wonderfully expressive
and significant pranks. The movements of hie
closely cropped dun mane, which has all the silki-
ness and is quite as wavy as a clothesbrush, are in
themselves a study. With this mane be scrubs the
faces of children who come too near his head, ex-
presses stubbly defiance, and endorses the silent
notes of exclamation made by his quick moving and
constantly changing ears. A pony full of charac-
ter, too, and one who, when he has uttered his
" Lord, what fools these mortals be !" disdains
argument and only looks pityingly at the poor
old specimen of humanity who presumes to hold

[TWOPENCE

his head. Bind man plays with considerable feel-
ing, and the crowd around are perfeetly decorous,
sympathising, and respectful. The two young
couples seated hand in hand on the grass wonder
whether " he was born so," and how he " came to
have a blind wife as well ;" but this is sotto race,
and there is nothing to interrupt the music save the
gambols of infants too little to be kept quiet.
• and cooing, making one of nisei in or
on a our-wheel street-cab, smoking big cigars of
auspicious flavour, and drinking ginger-beer of sur-
surpassing frothiness, would appear to be the
favourite Sunday amusements of the district. The
shopboy, the adult counter-j tamper, the smaller tribe
of tradespeople, do not greatly vary in their charac-
teristics, and may be seen in St. James's or Hyde-
park any Sunday. Hers, at Victoria, however,
they have the place to themselves, and neither in
the carriage-dries nor in the various walks, nor in
any portion of the gardens, is there a ves-
tige of the "upper ten." The perfect free-.
dam of the roads strikes a stranger as
being very singular. At a little dietaries
there is nothing to distinguish these well-kept,
clearly-defined tracks from the grass through which
they run, and the result is that small tax-carts with
pater and materfamiliaajand their extensive assort-
ment of olivebranches, comfortably seated, and cabs
having three gentlemen at full length upon their
roof, two more on the box, and four inside, all of
whom are smoking and on terms of familiar friend-
ship with the driver, seem to be careering along
the turf, following no rule but their own sweet will.
A moment's inspection shows you that they are
really keeping to the road, and you next wonder
whether the cab-horse is the property of its
driver, or whether both cab and steed,
have een jobbed for the day by the nine rather
flushed and dishevelled gentlemen who are in-
flicting upon them their naked weight, to the trial
of wind and the grave jeopardy of springs. Their
demeanour is unexceptionably quiet, as is that of
everybody. we saw during our stay in the park.
The people's hand, which has phi) ed sacred music
here on Sunday afternoons during the summer,
rested from its self-imposed labours a week or two
back, aad the blind man has the field to himself.
There are authorised refreshment huts, where tea.
at sixpence a bead, hot water at twopence, and
cakes and et Menu at specified prices, may be,
always obtained ; there is a charmingly situated
ornamental sheet of water embowered with trees,
where bathing is encouraged in catkin !wilts,
and round which garden seats are ranged - there
area couple of snug stone alcoves, like hermits;
caves at one end, and diverse provision for athletic.
sport; all over the park ; and after visiting these,
watching ita thousands of bright, happy, and beam-
ing faces, and accepting them as even more welcome
ornaments than its beautiful flowers ; after noting
everywhere preparations for amusements, apprecia-
tion of the goods provided, jollity and contentment,
you come away convinced--old Froissart notwith
standing—that at Victoria-park and the Old Ford
English people have no notion of taking their
pleasure sadly.

ALARMING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

ACORLNOTON, S&TUID4T.

• - -
An alarming accident took place at the railway
be lest night, which might, if it had sot occurred at so
late an boor, have been attended with a terrible sacrifice of
hie, Between nice and ten o'clock last night an ercurrion
tram, waisting of shoat thirty empty carriages, which had
been standing for some lime DMZ the Accringtoe Railway
Make. were taw up the incline on the Manchester branch
of lina .by to seems, ow being in frost and the other at
the rear. Wham the Wee had bow ran up the =bask.
meet a short thermos, the rear engine left the carriages
Washed to the ea I. freak for the purpose of getting upon
' washer Wet hi stew tam titer the lest imutne had
left the train, the coupling chain between the
second and third carriage from the head engine
broke, and twisty-eiglit of the carrieges ran
back at a tremendous speed. The down engine shunted off
the line soon after they broke loose, and the carriages, whoa
they passed it, were running at a rapid rate. Two guards
happened to be on the runaway carriages at the time, and
they put or breaks for the purpose of checking their im-
petus; but in this respect their efforts were quite useless;
and Midis( that their position was becoming more alarming
every second, sad that a terrible smash must soon emu*
somewhere, they jumped off the carriages, and luckily were
not at all injured in dots( so. The carriages ran ahead down
the line, near the Blackball airbag ; they were turned off
the main line by a pointeman, but they had not gone far
before a great crash took plate. On the line they were
runnier there were two carriages @feeding. The down car-
riages came into collie= with them, bat they were not at
first thrown off the rate, and all dashed forward at
speed towards the station. The two carriages alluded to
bounded forward whoa etre* bet the runaways speedily
overtook them and ran them aa the rails, foilowieg the
same course themselves immediately afterward+. Here the
accident assumed a most alarming character : the carriages
were mashie( into each other, rearing up and rolling over is
all directions, and the fearful momenturn they had obtained
caused them to spread general destruction. Wheels, huge
pews of iron. footboards, glass, carriage sides, bolts, and
chains literally strewed the ironed. The mesh was terrible
sad the damage immune. Five of the carriame—a first,
three second, and one third—were completely broken to
=tHappily, so me was is the carriages. If they
o occupied every soul would hare been cat up and
killed on the spot. If also the pointaman bed sot
turned the arrives apes the siding when they were
coming down the embankment there would have bees •
dreadful catastrophe at the eaten. A peassoger twill was
waitieg there when the carriages broke lone, and it could
not by any notability haws been got off the Hee wither
could the peaseagers bats got ont of the carriage* in which
they were seared in time to have escaped the collision which
must have ensued. After the accident several of the rail-
way officials were soon on the spot, and they secured a num-
ber of men to clear the reed. A huge fire was made of the
broken timber tithe carriages for the men to work by. It
was sot until this morniag that tie &brie was got eat of
the way. Today numbers of peeple have visited the scene
of the accident out of curiosity. The affair has created much
ItidielndlOi throughout the tows and neighbourhood, for it bag
put runny is mind of the dreadful acet which happeced
on the same branch of railway, and almost wider walla
circumstances, at Belmehtme few yew ago. On that
crecaeien the earriegesof cm meanies train broke twee from
the engine, and ran dews an inches. the results of which
are known to all. There can be so doubt that the check
which the rear carriages would experience when left by Use
engine was the sole caws el the Resident last night. The
coupling between the carriages is broken at the end of the
screw, but the has appears to be strong and sound. and
nothing but • strain upon the metal which it never was is-
tended to bear could have snapped it.

THANII9 ANOLINO. —The reports from the assistant
river keepers of the Thames Angling Preservation Society
for the week ending the 2.4 th inst. concur in represeetieg
the fishing as much improved within the last few days,
owing to the reosot rates. Fletcher describes the sport in
the neighbourhood of Staines as " arcellset." He state;
that one gentleman with • friend took 581 b. of barbel,
roach, and daoe eat Staines-bridge ; another caught upwards
of 401 h. ; and &anther party upwards of 5011). At ehertesy,
Halliford, and &Asbury, then Me been tolerable sport.
There have been plenty of perch and gudgeon taken at
Hampton, ems few mall barbel at Manissy. when the
bowever. has set been as good. At Kingston the
bank fishers have doe. well sac aget the barbel and bream—
s lad took ow of the former of 5411 a. Date fishing has coo.
tinned good at Teddingten ; Erriegtoe reverts eleven dozen
having been lakes in one boor. At Twickenham there
has beessome good takes, and the roach are feed* better.
Ono gentleman took 15 dozen dace (one weighing se.), sad
Dina barbel, seat Petersham Island ; sad in the WIN place,
' • day or two afterwards. another angler took 13 dozes dace
and air barbel. Fly diking barn been exceediegly good from
Richmond to the Duke of Orleans' mildews, ea rimy!'
five dozen fine dace having beim taken by one rod. The
dace have never been finer than they are this season. About
Bientford sad Kew the river is in so filthy • condition is
to be very destructive to the fish. A gentleman thus
writes—" From Kew Bridge to Brantford Ferry, on
Saturday lam, shortly after high tide, I maw at beset • doses
Ines with boathooks and heal; sets, aitchieg • great
number of large barbel and small roach in • stupid state,
rolling about as if (bock. sod altogether in a most unhealthy
condition, which is attributable toad poisonous state of the
water." All the praiaiworthy meruoso of the Thames
Angling Preservation Society will be rendered abortive it
the fish are the. to be poisoned by tons in the tideway ; but
it is satisfactory to know that the quietism is undergoing
serious emeldirstion is the proper quarter.
A series of trial trips on the Pneumatic Passenger
Railway, mistreated is the yeas& of the Crystal Palace,
took place as Sattoday, esd were witnessed sod takes
part in by the Hon. Cols, C.B. ; Capt. Fowke, B.E. ; Mr.
Scott Bussall, C.F. ,• Mr. Ogilvy, and • somber of other
/asthma esanwited with seisms, sod She working of rail-
way%