The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-10 00:00:00

111 V SUN, LONDON, SATIN

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1870.

THE recurrence of railway accidents of the most
fearful char'acter immediately before the oommenc-
ment of the Christmas holidays, when excursion
trains are added to the ordinary traffic and the
multitude of travellers is appreciably increased,
startles the public into the realisation more vividly
than ever of the terrible risks perpetually run upon
the great lines of intercommunication. The snapping
of a coupling chain, the confused turning, of a handle
the wrong way by a bewildered pointsman, has alone
in these two last appalling casualties led to the
most afflicting consequences—to sudden death, to
horrible mutilation, to an indescribable amount of
suffering. Journeying as we now do at so great a
velocity, the :result- of any serious accident is
proportionately enhanced in' magnitude. If a col-
lision takes place, the crash is disastrous. In order
to realise this anew, let anyone recall to mind, what
nearly everyone nowadays must at some time or
another have witnessed, namely, the passing by at
some small intermediate station of au express
not stopping there, the flashing and roaring and
whirling by of a ponderous steam engine and a long
train of carriages, the weight, the pace, the momentum
all together, being visible, and audible upon the
instant to the bystander 1 An express, coming into
collision with some motionless obstruction, it stands
to reason, must prove terribly destructive. Let
another train, however, coming in an opposite direc-
tion meet the express upon the same line of rail, and
the horror of the calamity is enhanced almost beyond
calculation. It is a doubly violent collision precisely
of this kind that has unhappily just now occurred
near Sunderland. The two trains rush into one
another. The clashing steam engines are both of
them dashed into ruin. The crowded railway
carriages are instantaneously crushed by the
shock into a wreck of splintered timber.
One of them has the whole side of it

thrown oft' unbroken as the two ends are
brought together, the flooring of this carriage being
burst upwards with such an explosion of force that
the unfortunate occupants are thrown a considerable
height into the air, falling dead or wounded in

among the burning coals of the shattered furnaces.
Examining the list of the killed and maimed after-
wards is like reading the description of the appear-
ance of a portion of one of the great French
battle-fields. The mutilations and agonising
disfigurements caused by this railway aocident are
not one jot less deplorable, than those produced by
the explosion of shells, the
,seattering of shrapnel, or
the infernal showSrs thrown out by the Gatling-gun
and the raitrailleuses Added to which there is a
distinct species of injuity caused by collisions of this
character that can only be so peodueed—
seemingly among the slightest, really among the
most disastrous and pitiable in its after consequences.
Allusion is here made, of course, to those numerous
cases in which the victims of the casualty are simply
described as " much shaken." No bones are broken, no
blood is shed, na amputation is necessitated-=there
is perceptible nowhere the slightest bruise or abra-
sion—the sufferer has been simply shaken, but
shaken severely. So severely often, as time proves,
that the constitution is utterly shattered—paralysis
eventually supervenes, leading in the end to mental im-
becility and to the most complete physical prostration.
All this misery, death, agony, idiotcy ; all these de-
plorable and irreparable sufferings being the result,
as we have said, of the snapping of a coupling
chain, or, as in this latest instance, the turning of a
handle the wrong Way by a bewildered pointsman.
Frequent as calamities of this kind have become of
late, the fact is at the same time undeniable that
with reasonable precautions the recurrence of these
casualties might be rendered all bat impossible.
Electricity, up and down every line, is there to aid
the railway officials, at any and every point, in flash-
ing timely warning right and left as to where the
line is clear or where blocked, as to the advisability
of slackening or accelerating the speed of any train
at any -point of its journey through from ter-
minus to terminus. Time the various trains
accurately, select only competent or duly
qualified officials for the discharge of the duties of
the various' departments of the whole complex scheme
of organisation, station-masters, engine-drivers,
guards, pointsmen, and knit the entire system toge-
ther by a constant interchange of signals between
train and train, and station and station, and the
marvel then would be how any calamity of the
kind could by any possibility come to pass.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.