The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

The Fatal Accident at London Bridge Station,

Last evening, Mr W. Payne, coroner for Southwark, held
an inquiry at Guy's Hospital respecting the deaths of two
men, George Start and James May, who were cut to pieces
last Saturday morning, near the London-bridge Station of
the South-Eastern Railway.

J. Ashton, engine driver, said—On Saturday moining he
was bringing up the Hastings express train, due at London-
br:srige at 11 15. When within 500 yards of the station, the
train was switched off the main up-line on to the Croydon
up-line, which is within 2ft 4in of tho parapet. Just at
that moment :2€l saw the two deceased between the metals
and the wall. Heteversed the engine and put on the breaks,
but the train was on them in a moment. One of them
looked at witne9s, and caught hold of the other to pull him
out of the way, when they were struck by the buffer-beam
which projected over the metals. Witness saw them spin-
ning round between the carriage and the wall for the whole
length of the train. There was not room for any person
to stand between the wall and the ',rejections of the train
—there could be no escape from such a position.
James E 'wards and John Baggy described the fearful
state in which they found the two deceased on the line,
May had been ci lashed against the wall for a distance of
100 yards from where the train first struck him, and a
trace of blood along the parapet was distinctly visible. He
was cut to pieces. Start was not so badly crushed, and ho
lived two hours. They had been employed to post bills of
the "Route to Paris" on a board over the parapet at the
viaduct, end to enable them to stand on the parapet they
hud a small ladder with them. Trains were passing th e
spot every three or four minutes, and it was not possible to
tell until the train was within 60 yards of where they stood
whether it would continue on the main up line or come in
next the wall on to the Croydon up line.

Mr May, inspector of the South-Eastern Company's ad-
vertising department, said that the deceased were employed
in the engineer's yard, and he directed them to paste the
bills because they knew all about the trains, If they had
commenced their work at 6 o'clock they could have had it
all over by 9, before the heavy traffic commenced, but they
deferred the business too late.
The Coroner having summed up,
_ _

The jury returned a verdict that the decease' were killed
accidentally while pasting bills on the South-Eastern line,
and the jury recommended that all bills should in future be
pasted before 8 o'clock in the mottling, and that no adver-
tising boards should be erected within at least 200 yards of
a switching julction,

Lord Enfield, MY., and Mr, Lindsay, M.P.,
at Uxbridge.

Lord Enfield and Mr. Lindsay, M.P., were among the )
speakers at the annual dinner of the Middlesex Agricul-
tural
Society, which took plac3 at Uxbridge on Friday. Lord
Enfield defended the foreign policy of the Government—
especially with regard to the American and Dano-German
wars. With regard to domestic affairs, it had been said by a
high authority that they would do well to " rest and be
thankful." That came well from an old veteran who had
borne himself nobly in many a well-fought political field ;
but with regard to those younger men, who had yet their
pc litical spurs to win, he thought they ought to have another
watchword, " Move with the times." (Cheers.) If they
looked around them, they saw that in Parliament they had
yet much work to do. In the state of their laws, and in
many other matters to which he need not particularly allude,
there was a wide field for their exertions. Everything in the
material and physical world was advancing, and daily pro-
ducing new fields for honourable effort and employment,
and they could not, therefore, sit with their hands folded
and say that as legislators their labour was at an end ; on
the contrary, he believed that before them they had a great
Tature, and if they again conferred upon him the honour
of being one of their representatives, ho would ever be
animated with a warm desire to pursue the path of peace,
progress, and improvement in all matters which affected
the prosperity of the country.—Mr Lindsay said he
agreed with his noble friend that their wisest course was
not to interfere in the American contest. Mediation would I
be useless, and he had never advocated mediation, much
less interference, but had always been an humble, earnest
advocate of peace. Ho had looked upon this vain and
wicked war with horror and disgust. (Hear.) He agreed
with the statesmen of England when they pronounced
through Mr Gladstone that the Southern people, both in
the management of their internal affairs, and in the defence
of their liberties and their homes, were a nation. The ma-
jority of the people of England felt that they were a nation
able to defend themselves against the masses of the North ;
and he thought it was their duty, not to interfere, not to
mediate, but to advise their Sovereign, in the exercise of
her just prerogative, to receive at her Court the representa•
tive of a people who had shown themselves, in every sense
of the word, a nation. (Hear.) The other Great Powers of
Europe were willing to follow their example, and he be-
lieved that the moral effect of recognition would have
stayed the dreadful war. The Northern Government,
through Mr Seward, had now avowed that the restoration
of the Union, and not the extinction of the iniquitous sys-
tem of slavery, was the olject of the war ; and if England
and the other Powers of Europe hai recognised the South,
and thus shown that they believed the restoration of the
Union to be vain, the moral effect on the people of the Nor:h
would most likely have been such as to stay this desolating
war. England had great interest in seeing the people of
America great, prosperous, and industrious; and he feared
that the policy which had been adopted by those who had
the destinies of England in their hands had been a mia-
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their American colonies, they gotinto trouble with the
North, they had lost the warm hearts, if not the material
aid, of the South. (Rear, hear.)