The Express.
London, England, 1862-12-24 00:00:00

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

It is just made known that an accident occurred
to the Irish mail train on its way up from Holyhead on the
morning between the 18th and 19th inst., by which the
passengers arrived late by nearly five hours in London, hav-
ing bad the narrowest possible escape from destruction.
While running at full speed the train an against an empty
coal•truck, standing upon the main up-line, at a point about
;Si miles west of Chester. The track was broken to frag-
ments, and the remains of the body, dislocated from the
whole undercarriage and wheels, was projected
right across the six-foot arid the down line, and
without once touching ground hurled into the sunk
fence at that side of the line. The engine and almost all
the train were thrown off the rails, and went ploughing and
thumping along through ballast and deepen for a consider-
able distance. The engine-driver promptly shut off steam.
One axle and pair of wheels of the ruined truck had got in
under the srooke-box end of the engine—the axle
doubled up, one wheel under the boiler and the
other ploughing into the ballast and scram the
sleepers, luckily, nearly midway between the rails.
By this accidentally-produced, but powerful break, aided
by large fragments of the iron frame of the waggon im-
pacted between the driving-wheels and franking, Ito., of the
engine, the train was brought to a standstill at a moment
when farther forward movement of even 50 yards would
have hurled the arriages over the brow claw to which they
mu, and into a deep siding next the up line. The engine
WIN greatly shattered, the buffer beam and both cylinder
and casings knocked to pieces, &c. That the few passengers
(not above 12 or 15) should have escaped with only shakes
and bruises was attributable solely to the small momentum
of the nearly empty train, and to the singular chance of
the truck axle having got doubled up as described, end
become • break.
_ _ _

One of the passengers from London to Manchester by the
5 o'clock caper train on Saturday night, gives the follow-
ing account of the accident near Stookport:—" We were
about T 3 minutes behind time when we left Crewe station,
and travelled at what seemed to me an extraordinary speed
to Stockport, stopping only far a short time at derley.
The ticket. were collected at Stockport, and the train
was quickly in motion mph. We had scarcely passed
Heaton Norris when we again rolled along at a very great
weed ; the carriage which I occupied began to oscillate, ran
off the line, and fell into s deep trench, leaning with
one side toward. a steep embankment. My travelling com-
panions and myself had not yet moved, when an engine
rushed pad us, and we heard immediately afterwards a tre-
mendous crash. Oa getting out of our compartment we
found that oar train, which consisted of the guards' van
(following immediately behind the tender), ate sward-ohm
and three first-class carriages, had been run into sod broken
by the pilot-engine, which had been travelling close behind
um. My carriage, which was the last, u well as the last
but one. was moat providentially quite thrown off the line
before the pilot-engine came up, end we thus reaped, com-
parativelyspeaking, unhurt. I am sorry to my that the
passengers of the er two carriages met with a very different
fate. The third nut-class carriage was broken Warms, as
well as the second-clam carriage, with the exception of the
compartment nearest the van. The seats of this partition
were preened together, and two unfortunate peronista were
euffenog the moot excruciating pains until we anoeseded in
breaking up the • , and rescuing them from their awful
y position. This took f half an hour, owing to, I roped,
a want of a suitable supply of tools. Our engine, tender,
and guards' van seemed to me to have remained oaths rails;
anyhow they were standing quite erect, and had apparently
suffered no damage. My impression, as wallas that donne
of my travelling companions, is that the lad carriage left
the maids first, dragging with it the one before it: at all
events, the other two carriages or their remains were scat-
tered oa the line after the oollison. The came of oar
running off the rails appears to me to have been that we
travelled with a very light train at too great a speed."
Yesterday morning, shortly after 5 o'clock, as a pas-
senger train was passing through the Oakahaw Tunnel, on
the Cleekheaton line, it was stopped by an obstacle in the
form of a quantity of debria, which had fallen from the
roof of the tunnel. The sadden shock caused serious in-
juries to presagers, nearly 30 being more or less cut. The
tunnel is about 300 yards long, and some seven feet had
fallen on the track of the metals. The pas enger traffic
was interrupted daring the day, the passengers being
landed at each end of the tunnel and carried on by engines
also at each end

The attention of scientific agriculturists on the
Continent is being called to Baron Liebig's new work on
the " Natural Laws of Husbandry." The renowned Ger-
man chemist and natural philosopher made the experiments
on which his facts are based in farms lying in Saxony.

A letter from Rome, under date of the 16th inst.,
sialea that the Pontifical government hag authorised The

return of such of its subjects u have left the country in
consequence of being compromised by the political events
of the but few years. They will, however, be called upon
to explain to the Pontifical authorities at the frontier the
rearms of their departure and their return.
Private advicea from the Canaries have been
received at Oaths, stating that the yellow fever at Tonor
riffs is on the decline.

THE METROPOLITAN RAlLWAY.—Yesterday the
electric telegraph and semaphore signals, in conformity with

the recommendation of Colonel follnrd, the government
inspector, were adjuated, and should they, on a further in-
spection, be found sativfactory the certificate of the Board
of Trade will be granted for-the opening of the line,