The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-07-07
A Story with q Moral.
To the Editor of the Mew York World {:

The paragraph in your paper of this morn.
ing from Greenfield journal, which recites the
shocking circumstances attendant upon a re-
cent railway disaster on the Rutland road hard
ly does full justice to the subject Permit me
to state on the best authority sundry facts which
put in still clearer relief the inhumanity and
the ignorance of the region in which this ca
lamity occurred.
The gentleman killed, Mr.. Alfred Field,
was one of the first gineers in New England,
man holding several positions of great re-
sponsibility. The wife of Mr.. Field went at
once to the scene of the accident, and it is from
gentleman who was present when she arrived
that have my information rs to the state in
which she found her unfortunate husband. 1t
was then the second day after the accident.
Absolutely nothing had been done for the suf-
ferers. The railroad company had provided
neither surgical aid nor comforts nor succor
of any kind. Those whom the carelessness of
they lay like dogs
The place where the disaster occurred is near
to populous towns and well-to-do communities.
These sent forth crowds of curious and inquisi-
tive spectators to the scene Of blood, but not
one charitable soul. The people came from
miles to gaze on the exciting show of human
agony, but they brought with them neither oil
nor balm to heal the wounds of the sufferers.
When MIR. Field lay dying man had to be
stationed before his door to keep these people
from pressing in to stare and cape about his
couch. And this in moral and pious New
England, the home of Mrs. Stowe, who gropes
in dead mems graves to surprise some guilty
secret in their hidden lives the home of Wen
dell Phillips and of Sumner, who could not
sleep in their beds till slavery had been stamp
ed out in blood
I, who listened to this shameful story, could
not but remember the very different scene of
which I was an eyewitness, last February, in
the "rebel' State of Mississippi. was travel
ing on the Mississippi Central Railroad, to New
Orleans. Near Oxford, in Mississippi, the train
just preceding ours had run off the track and
plunged through the trestle of the road. Some
twenty persons had been killed or wounded.
suppose, been rich, but it had been thoroughly
harrried by the soldiers of Grant and Sherman,
and it is none the better as you may suppose,
for their visitations. The nearest house was
several miles away. But in few hours after
the accident occurred the woods were alive with
people, Fastening, not to stare, but to save: l
saw wagons with mattresses and beds enough to
move twice the number hurt, sent up to carry
the sufferers to the homes of the nearest plan
tiers. Wines, spirits, and food were sent in
quantities. The next morning the railroad
company had fresh train brought up from
distance of nearly one hundred miles, and when
we reached station where food was obtainable,
the detained passengers were fed at the cost of
the company.
Now that it is still the fashion in some quar-
tiers to revile our Southern fellow citizens as
the most hard hearted and inhuman of mortals,
think it may possibly do good to lay before the
public this simple but expressive contrast be-
tween the Pharisees and the Samaritans.
NeaU York, June 25, 1870