The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-24
The Holocaust Near Angola.

4
The vast interior of the New York Central
Railroad depot, at Buffalo, on Sunday
afternoon the scene of a ceremonial which it is
to be hoped will never have to be repeated in
this world. Above the shattered and charred
remains of nearly thirty human beings-the
unrecognized or unclaimed majority of the
number of sixty dead victims of the casualty
on the Buffalo and Erie Road-funeral services
were conducted by all the ministers of the
gospel in the city, funeral songs were chanted
by all the church choirs, while the members
of the City Council acted as pall-bearers, and
a great congregation in and outside Of the
building stood by with uncovered heads.
This impressive tribute of civilized popula-
tion to the dead, and the unknown friends of
the dead who were so unexpectedly depo-
sited in their keeping, will serve to deepen the
awe with which the public received the news
of an unparalleled calamity. Scarcely one
month ago an account of the crushing, suffo-
eating, or roasting alive of the four sisters
Morgan, of New Orleans, and a gentleman
who perished while attempting to rescue
them, sent a shudder through every house
hold in the country where newspaper is read.
But this accident at what ought to be chris
tened the Bridge of Death, near Angola, in
volved such a wholesale killing, burning
alive, and manning of people, that we do not
see how it can tail to inspire distrust of
the American railway system which has been
heretofore singularly dormant. 1t may be
conceived, in the first place, that the accident
was the result of an always dangerous in
crease of the regular speed of the train to
SNAKE up'' two hours lost time. One pas
senger SAYS he remarked to a companion the
rapidity with which they were riding near
Angola, through which village the train rushed
without hating and in three minutes was
wreck. In the second place, accepting the
hypothesis that the rear car was thrown from
the track by a broken wheel, 1t is very probable
that the car wheels had not, in the haste
attending the movements OF train two hours
behind time, been carefully sounded and ex-
amined. In the third place, one marked defect
in the construction of the road was luridly set
forth by the flames of the fierce holo caust that
consumed whole car full Of passengers and
came near enveloping another car with its in
mates. The bridge, hundred feet in length,
across which the two cars, after leaving the
track, rolled almost to the farthest bank, and
there toppled and plunged down ths 10y slope
below, was without parapet. "a look from
the BRIDGE" writes a corresponding ''unpro-
tected by a wall or railing, is sufficiently
startling without the knowledge Of this fear
full accident" Had there been strong guards
on either side the bridge, the cars could not
have fallen and the subsequent appalling tre
would not have occurred In the IOurth
place, the fire itself, which consumed many
persons who might otherwise have escaped
with their lives, spIang from the Goals and
faggots in the overturned and broken stoves,
the most unhealthy as well as dangerous heat
ing apparatus that could be used in a car.
Here, then, are four kinds of neglect, of
which neither the Buffalo and Erie Railroad
Company, nor but few other railroad compa-
MES In the United States, can be held blame
less. Failure to make regular connections in
the winter season is perhaps inevitable; but
the practice Of running at a great speed in
order to retrieve at one end of a road the
time lost at another, is particularly culpable
when rails and running gear are brittle with
frost, and the lives OF passengers are endan-
gered at every turn. At such times, travellers
with theirwits about them must have observed
the careless way in which examina tions of
the runningrgear are conducted at the stations.
and that frequently such precautions are omit
ted' Defective bridges enhance the constant