The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-02 00:00:00

The Disaster on the Erie Railway,

From the imperfect accounts as yet received re-
specting the late terrible collision on the Erie Rail-
road, we extract the following :—" At Port Jervis
the double track of the Erie Railroad ends, and for
the next 24 or 25 miles the road is but a single track
to Lackawasen Junction, with occasional lengths of
double track where the nature of the road permits,
Throughout the whole of this distance, and for
some miles further on, the railroad runs up the val-
ley of the Delaware, and is full of sharp curves and
awkward turns, along which it is often impossible
for the engine-driver to see more than 50 or 60 yards
in advance. It was along this piece of the road,
about two miles from Shohola, and when turning
a point of one of the abutting hills, that the train ot
18 emigrant cars, with the freight of 958 souls,
running at the rate of 25 miles an hour, met a
coal train of 50 cars, with each a load of 12 tons,
that came thundering down the incline from Lecke-
waxen. Wheu the trains came in sight of each
other they could not have been much more than 100
yards apart, the drivers not having time even to
reverse their engines and jump off before death was
upon them; the driver of the passenger train, named
William Ingram, and his fireman, named Tuttle
being both taken off the engine dead, as was the
fireman of the coal engine, named Philo Prentiss.
The shock was tremendous and its results awful,
though fortunately neither of the engines left the
line. The tender of the passenger engine was
turned up on end, the wood for fuel being thrown
in front, and burying the driver and fireman before
named. The first car, of course, was utterly de•
stroyed, being jammed, as a spectator describes it,
into a space less than 6ft., while, to complete its
demolition, the tender that had been tipped on end
fell back on its roof. It contained 37 men, some of
whom were on the platform at the time of the col-
lision, and from its wreck 36 were taken out dead,
only one man escaping with his life by falling be-
tween the platforms to the earth. Three of the cars
in all were total/y destroyed, and seven or eight of
them so much broken as to be entirely useless, and
it was in these cars that the greatest loss of life
occurred, for when the collision took piece two
Union soldiers were placed as sentinels at each door
on the platforms of each car, which were also oc-
cupied by some of the rebels beguiling the way by
conversation with the sentry. Of the men thus
standing all were immediately killed save one or
two. The scene is described by those who escaped
as most appalling—the road blocked up with debris,
car piled upon car in the most indescribable confu-
sion, the bodies of those thrown from them covering
the road at every step, the flying dust and blinding
smoke from the quenching fires, the noise of the
escaping steam, and, above all, the fearful groans
and heartrending cries of the injured and expiring
will never be forgotten. Some of the corpses were
shockingly mutilated, heads completely crushed,
bodies transfixed, impaled on timbers or iron roads,
or smashed between the colliding beams."

A MAN CRUSHED TO PIECES.—On Saturday a
shocking accident befel a man named Samuel Daw-
son, a carder, of Todmorden, employed at the Bark Island
Mills, near Halifax. Dawson was attempting to throw the
strap off a carding machine, when his clothes were caught
hold of by the strap ; he was taken round the shaft, and in
an instant he was sa dreadfnlly broken to pieoes that his
limbs dropped on the floor. His body wos frightfully muti-
lated, and had to be picked up piecemeal. Deceased was
about 40 years of age, and has left a wife and family.
THE PLYMOUTH FORTIFICATIONS.—The masons
at the north-eastern defences of Plymouth are now
on strike, and the masons' labourers are consequently
obliged to be idle also. It is not a question of wages, time
of working, or of any ordinary right and privileges of the
body, but is a stand made against an arrangement volun-
tarily entered into by the whole body of men, and from
which the masters derive no benefit whatever. It was re.,
solved by the workmen employed on the fortifications that,
as they had come from all parts of the country and had no
provision for their attendance in case of sickness, a medical
club should be started among them, the members of which
paid 3d. per fortnight for advice during illness. This was
unanimously agreed to; but it being found that there was
some irregularity in the payments, it was resolved that the
contractors be requested to render such payment compul-
sory. To this they acceded. The masons, however, or
rather the masons' society's officers, have taken offcnce at
the use of the word "shall," and have called off all the
society men, on the ground that the dignity of the men
has been injured, and they must not work under any
such stipulation. Whether the medical society thus esta-
blished is the best possible form in which the men may
be benefitted is wholly beside the question at issue. The
rule was made at the request of the men, awl the masters
can derive no benefit from its operation.