The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-10 00:00:00

FATAL ACCIDENT ON THE

PETERI3ORO' AND ELY RAILWAY.

PETERBOROUGH, TatmanAv.—An accident of a very
serious character, terminating fatally to one person, and
with injury we understand to one or two others, hap-
pened early this morning, on the above line of railway,
near the " Hundred Feet" bridge, twenty-two miles
distant by the 6.10. express train running off the rails.

The train consisted,-on leaving the stal'ion,of two pas-
senger carriages, a first and seoond class, a break van,
tender and engine, driven by a steady and experienced
driver, named Staples. In all these were about twelve
passengers, two or three being picked up at intermediate
stations, up to Manea station, where it arrived at ite
fixed time, 57 minutes past six o'clock.
After a brief delay it restarted, and proceeded with
every apparent steadiness until it arrived about 100
yards on the Ely side of the above bridge (the Hundred
Feet), where there is a descending gradient of 1 in 250.
It had not gone down the incline many yards before the
engine was thrown off the rails, and was, with the tender,
hurled completely round, and then fell down an embank-
ment to the edge of a waterway, which runs for some
distance along that portion of the I,ne. Fortunately
the carriages broke away from the tender, and brought
up a few feet from the spot, owing to the wheels being
embedded or fixed in the gravel of the permanent way,
the rails being torn up or displaced by the engine.
How the passengers escaped seems very remarkable;
yet the writer is assured that all were unhurt save a few
trifling bruises on one or two of them. The stoker was
found apparently much hurt, while the engine-driver
was discovered crushed on the rails by the break iron,
quite dead. The poor fellow's death mast have been in-
stantaneous, as that portion of his body on which the
iron rested was nearly ti ittened.
A young man engaged in the telegraph office of the
company is described oy an eye-witness to have been
badly bruised.

Tne beeessary signals were placed to stop the up and
down trains, and the company's principal officers were
Immediately telegraphed for. On their arrival a strict
ir,quiry was entered upon as to the cause of the accident,
at:d o❑ examining the soils, one was found fractured in
three p:aces. Whether these arose from the sinking of
the soil ur permanent way, which, it should be observed,
passes over the treacherous fens in this part of the
country, or from the metal being defective, is diftle.th
to ascertain.

The engine is one of the small four-wheelers used by
the company, made by Braithwaite, marked No. 7, and
was considered a very steady and safe traveller.
It is thought that a slight subsidence or unevenness in
the road would naturally give the engine more or less
a bumping movement, and that coming upon a defec-
tive rail, would be likely to fracture it in the way the
one in question is.

THE LATE THUNDER STORM.

The destruction of property on the Surrey side of the
water and other places, by the thunder storm on Tuesday
night last, has been fearful, and from inquiries wade, it
seems that several individuals have met with serious in-
juries. At the time the storm was raging most violently
a man named George Watkins, residing in Vauxhall.
street, Lambeth, was proceeding along Broad-street,
when he was struck to the ground by the lightning, the
head and right arm being both dreadfully scorched and,
blackened. lie was discovered by a policeman, who re-
moved the poor fellow to his home in a weak and de-
plorable condition.
The landlord of the Rising Stn, Mr. J. Keene, Port-
land-street, Walworth, has been a great sufferer. The
signboard in front of the house was shattered and
scorched by the electric fluid. The window frames and
glass in various parts of the house were destroyed, and
even portions of brickwork may be seen broken to pieces
by the violence of the storm, in fact there is scarcely a
whole pane of glass in the street above-named.
Various buildings around Kennington were much in-
jured. The district church of St. Mark, facing K,-n-
-ntagton-common, was considerably damaged by the
fluid. The clock was shaken and stopped. Melly ofthe
florists at Battersea, Wandsworth, Mortlake, and Barnes
were great losers by the destruction of some of their
choicest plants.
A large quantity of valuable pigeons were killed on
the premises of Mr. James King, New-cross, Deptford,
by the lightning, which struck the roof of a building,
dislodging a portion of the tiling, which was hurled with
great violence into the street. The feathers of the
birds were scorched up, and presented a very remark-
able appearance.
At Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, and other places the in-
habitants have suffered to a very serious extent.

SLAVERY in the UNITED STATES.
(
The following is an extract of a letter from a gentle-
Man in New York—an offiee-bearer in a Presbyterian
church:—
" The Bible Society has declared that it will not give
the Bible to slaves even where they are able to read.
The Tr ict Society has positively refused to publish any
tract against slavery, and the other societies stand aloof
from the subject. I would say further that the slave-
holders have declared that they will not tolerate the cir-
culation of any hook or tract if it contains a word
against slavery. Therefore the Arn.sican Tract Society,
the.
Board of Publication, exclude
Methodist Tract Society, Baptist Publication So
c,lety, and Presbyterian
'reortny.th_r_ir lists every book that has a word against sla-
htieonciorefuLated.
Thus, crouching to the slave power, they ex-
tinguish all light o which might otherwise
n the subject
were they
in obtaining
in the tree states, if not among the popula-
tion
the chluersc;:uetsla,w 1 d
would find any difficulty
question put to an applicanttey to apply.
o not believe that slaveholders
(except byadmission to any
by a minister or member 0
aslaS:elyi°ll? And when myself)lha Are you connected with
looked
aslifnelvherdknew the
put the question, the other
mm: of the session haveve
very improper question. In all the churchesa
churches
thaeskseadmea
or distinctionole
south.
T prevailsh.,y
atilt hinavethtehe pro-slavery
pewkbers atter the
; all admi-
measspsousing the
nister the sacraments to the coloured r°
whites. A large majority of the ministers here have
opposed edh t o
not opposed public opinion by honestly
cause of the slave. They find the of their
churches throughout the states so violently
the abolition of slavery that their charactrsn
livings would be at stake. Nor is this all ; the greater
part of the ministers themselves are opposed to ther
freedom of the slave, and being linked together by ec-
clesiastical bodies, it requires a much larger share of in-
der,ndenee of character than falls to their share to take
a manly firm stand against the crime of elaveholding.
They have quite, enough light and quite enough con-
science to feel its deep iniquity, but they have too much
regard fur their reputation, and too much fear of offend-
ing their colleagues, to risk the honest expression of
their opinion."—coisman.