The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PRESS-THIS MORNING.
THE NEWARK ACCIDENT.

The Times, in referring to the disastrous accident at
Newark, says a heavy excursion train, a heavy goods
train, a dark night, and a sudden collision are among the
commonest ingredients of these disasters, but here the col-
lision was not caused by a quick train overtaking a slow
train, nor by a crowd of trains on the same line, nor by
want of punctuality, nor, as far as we can yet see, by any
neglect or imprudence whatever. The excursion train,
which was fairly appointed and carried four guards, had
kept its time all through, and was exactly where it ought
to have been when the accident occurred. It was not going
at any excessive speed; only, as it was not timed to stop
at Newark, but to run straight through the station,
its full pace of some twenty-five miles an hour was main-
tained at the moment. On the other hand, the goods
train was equally punctual, and equally in its place on its
own line. The catastrophe was caused entirely and ex-
clusively by the breakage of an axle at a particular mo-
ment. Had the fracture occurred one minute earlier or
one minute later, it would have produced no mischief.
Unhappily, it occurred in that very nick of time which
brought one train abreast of the other. It was the work
of an instant for an up train to pass a down train at some
point or other between York and London. At that very
instant a truck was hurled from the up train on the down
line, and the crash ensued. 'Excursion trains are uniformly
sources of danger, but this train, so fearfully wrecked,
might have seemed practically safe. The only train
before it was the Scotch express, not at all likely to be
overtaken, and behind it there was probably no
train at all. The time was a mild midsummer night,
with only an hour or two of darkness in prospect.
The engine was powerful enough for its work ; the
driver was an old servant of the company. Punc-
tuality was observed from first to last ; there was
nothing wrong in signals, points, or orders. The
only mischief destined to happen was the fracture of an
axle in a certain train running on the up line, which the
excursionists would just be one second in passing. In all
the hours of the journey there was, save for that single
second, no peril ahead, and yet that particular instant
proved fatal. We are certainly not furnished, in this
instance, with the ordinary grounds of complaint ; on the
contrary, we must acknowledge that we do not at pre-
sent see who can be 'blamed, but, for all that, so deplor-
able a calamity is an ominous and alarming beginning of
our excursion season.

The Standard says that the excursion season has been
inaugurated by one of the most fearful casualties in the
history of railways. A train of thirty carriages, filled
with passengers returning from a trip to town, has been
shivered into matchwood by an accident without precedent
or parallel. The Blackheath and Clayton tunnel collisions
were immediately fatal to a larger number of unfortunates
than are yet reported to have lost ther lives at
Newark. The New-cross disaster, which made the Li-
censed Victuallers' annual festival memorable, may have
given a greater aggregate of sufferers than any mishap of
the like nature. But the fatality of Monday night stands
out from among all others on account of the startling total
of both killed and wounded, no less than for the singular
nature of the mischance by which so many were over-
taken. The causes of this fearful tragedy are under
investigation, and we forbearlfrom anticipatiug the result
of an inquiry which ought to be peculiarly searching. At
a time when railway companies are moving the House of
Commons to limit their responsibilities, and complaining
bitterly of their liability to compensate sufferers from
their negligence, the fortuitous occurrence of so fearful a
calamity is singularly suggestive.