The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-07 00:00:00

very position in which it had been upset ; and onward, on the.
left-hand side, was.the body of the horse-box, with the pannels
slightly injured on the sides, the back part burned, and the front
broken completely away. The engine was removed, it appears,
from the spot to the Cambridge side of the Chesterford station.
En passant one may be permitted to observe, without attach-
ing the shadow of blame to any ene concerned, that it would
appear ju-t and reasonable to leave the component parts of the
wreik as near to the place of accident, and as they lay re-
speetieely, as the convenience of the public traffic admits of; for
it is eelfseeident that such an observance would facilitate the
• übsequeht investigation.
After General Pasley had minutely examined the state of
the carriages, &c., he proceeded to view the spot of the acci-
dent. On measurement, it appeared that it was 103 yards
from where the first jump was felt and the spot where the car-
riages were forced off the rail. The point, then, of considers-
'ion was, whether the accident was occasioned by excessive
Speed causing such a violent oscillation as eventually to throw
the carriages off the line, or a turning up of one of the rails,
caused by the immediately-preceding train. On this General
Pasley offered no opinion. The general feeling in the neigh-
bourhood is, that the train was going at considerably upwards
of thirty miles an hour, to make up a few minutes of lost time.
The engineer declares, on the other hand, that the speed was
not more than twenty-eight miles an hour. General Pasley
gave no opinion as to the,cause of the accident.
It appears almost miraculous how the passengers in the
second-class carriage, so dreadfully injured, as already described,
could have escaped not only without loss of life, or limb, in a
single instance, but absolutely without a wound or a bruise
worth speaking of--yet such is the fact. Some of this resulted
from the calmness and presence of mind displayed by Mr.
Jackson, the contractor of the line from Brandon to Cambridge.
This gentleman was in the coupe in front of the first-class car-
riages, with a lady, Mrs. Balfour, of Norwich. In the very
first, instance of the shock he held her back in her seat
by min force, and prevented her from being sent through
the window in front. When the upset took place he got in-
stantly out, find having extricated his companiotwhe proceeded
to assist the ether passengers, and each, who had anything
like presence of mind, as they got free lent a hand in emanci-
pating their companions. As might be expected, a great
many, especially of the female passengers, were dreadfully
prostrated, and it took some time to bring them to a sense
of the fact that they were far more fi ightened than hurt.
it was a singular fact, that amongst the first to escape, and
before Mr. Jackson could get tram the carriage in which he sat,
were three children, who went through the window of one of
the second-class carriages, one after another, as if they were
shot out, and landed on the bank, perfectly unhurt.
When it was perceived that the horse-box was on fire in the
rear, the front was judiciously broken in, and the animals
jumped out, and were thus saved, without hurt or blemish.
The poor stoker, Richard Peat, bad taken this his first trip
on the North-Eastern line as an experimental one, being a
driver on the Midland Counties. He was a fine young man,
and, melancholy to relate, had only been married six months.
His body now lies a' the Falcon inn, Littlebury, awaiting the
inquest, which will be held to-morrow (this day ), by Mr.
Lewis, the coroner for Essex, at eleven o'clock.
It is worthy of particular remark, and challenges the atten-
tion of the directors of the various lines through England,
that General Pasley observed to-day to Mr. Anson, and the
other officers of the company present, that if there had been
any engine behind as well as before, " the whole train would
have been settled." These were his emphatic words, by
which, to those who may not see their force, he meant that the
carriages would have been, with every human being in them,
smashed to atoms.
General Pasley and Mr. Phepps (the engineer of the line),
after about an hour and three-quarters investigation, left for
London in the two o'clock fast train, and arrived shortly before
four o'clock at sshoreditch.