Litchfield enquirer., 1875-11-11

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 that his hurt was mortal. and his first ex
 clamamation was. ''I have met my deathr
 He was at once placed on one of the state carriages, to which the NoFthumbrinn 10, c0motive was attached. and in twenty y-iive minutes was carrIed to Eccles, . distance of fifteen miles, where medical assistance was obtained. He was far beyond its reach, however. and upon the evening of the same day. before his companions of the morning had completed their journey. he was dead. t -sE- ,t,-A s.
 Necessarily the accident to Mir. Huskis- son threw deep gloom over the remain der of the celebration, and it was. indeed, only with the utmost difficulty that the Duke of Wellington was prevailed upon not at once to return to Liverpool. The party did at last go on, but the day, which in its earlier hours had promised to be so bright and so suspicious, proved in it's latter hours sad and anxious enough. In the first place, the crowd which thronged along the railroad track was so great as to be wholly beyond control; neither was it a peculiarly good-naturedo or well-disposed gathering. For just then the public dls- tress and discontent throughout England was greater than 1t had been within the memory of any man living; and, indeed. I SNOn nOW AS AAuy OO 4uCoekO100 whether England ever saw a sadder or more anxious year than that in which the railroad era at last struggled painfully in- to life. Not unnaturally, in view of his official position and his hard, unyielding character.-set like flint against any meas ure of sympathy or reform, ,-the premier duke was probably the most unpopular man in the United Kingdom; so now, as the excursionists approached Mancnester. the eyes of the prime minister were offend | ed by distasteful notices and emblems, while more than once missiles were even thrown at the train. Finally, the direct ors were very glad to get the ministerial party out of Manchester and back to Liy. crpool at the cost of a derangement of their entire schedule for the day: nor did the duke subsequently, hear Brougham's a famous speech, made at the dinner given at Liverpool in honor of the event, in l which with such infinite oratorical skill he referred at once to the wonders of the system that day inagurated and to the ca- tastrophe which had saddened it's opening observances. ..f. tf ..- - - l "When," he said, '.I saw the difficulties of space. as it were, overcome; when be-. held kind of miracle exhibited before my astonlshed eyes; when saw the rocks ex- cavated and the gigantic power of man penetrating through miles of solid mass, and gaining great, lasting, an almost perennial conquest over the powers of na-l ture by his skill and industry; when con- template all this, was it possible for me to avoid the reflections which crowded into my mind, not in praise of mans great suc- cess, not Tn admiration of the genius and. perseverance he had displayed. or even of thn ha hoa .H1~ self against obstacles that matter afforded to his course-no! but the melancholy re- hection, that these prodigious efforts of the human race, so fruitful of praise but so much more fruitful of lasting blessings to mankind. have forced tear from my eye by that unhappy casualty which de- prived me of friend and you of repre- sentativei"
 Though wholly attributable to his own ss e st B. oR saeR a occasion, could not but make deep im- pression on the public mind. The fact that the dying man was carried seventeen miles in twenty-five minutes, in search of rest and medical aid, served rather to stimulate the vague apprehension of dan ger which thereafter associated itself with the new means of transportation, and con- verted 1t into a dangerous method of car riage which called for no uncomfortable display of nerve on the part of those using 1t. Indeed, as respects the safety of tray el by rail there IS an edifying similarity bet~ cen the impressions which prevailed in England forty-five years ago and those which prevail in China now; for, when only last year it was proposed to intro duce railroads into the Celestial Empire a vigorous native protest was illuminated against them, in which among other things scarcely less astounding, it was alleged that Gin all countries where railroads ex- ist they are considered very dangerous mode of locomotion, and, beyond those who have very urgent business to transact, no one thinks of using them"
 On this subject, however, Of thedangers incident to journeys by rail, writer of nearly half & century back, who has left us one of the earliest descriptions of the Liverpool < Manchester read, thus reas- sured the public of those days, with a fresh quaintness of style which lends a present value to his words: -
 'The occurrence of accidents is not so frequent as might be imagined, as the great weight of the carriages (they weigh about one tenth part as much as those now in use in Americal prevents them from easily starting off the rails: and so great is the momentum acquired by these heavy loads moving with such rapidity. that they easily pass over considerable obstacles. Even in those melancholy accidents where loss of life has been sustained, the bodies of the unfortunate sufferers, though run over by the wheels. have caused little ir- regularity in the motion, and the passen- gers in the carriages have not been sensi- ble that any impediment has been encoun- tered on the road.
 Indeed, from the time of Mir. Huskis- sons death, during period of over eleven years. railroads enjoyed a remarkable and | most fortunate exemption from accidents. During all'that time there did not occur single disaster resulting in any considera- ble loss of life. This happy exemption was probably due to 8 variety of causes. Those early roads were, in the first place, remarkably we'll and thoroughly built, and | were very cautiously used under Q light volume of traffic. The precautions then taken and the appliances in use would, it is true, strike the modern railroad super intendent as both primitive and comical; for instance, they involved the running of independent pilot locomotives in advance | of all night passenger trains, and it was by the way, on ( pioneer locomotive of this description, on the return trip of the excursion party from Manchester after the accident to Mir. Huskisson, that the first l recorded attempt was made in the direc- tian of our present elaborate system of night signals. On that occasion obstacles were signalled to those in charge of the succeeding trains by man on the pioneer locomotive, who used for that purpose . bit of lighted tarred rope. Through all all the years bet~een 1880 and 1S41, new ertheless. not a single serious railroad ac- eident had to be recorded. Not that the corporations did not owe the exemption. among other things. to very fortunate and marrow escapes, and, curiously enough, the first accident which was at all serious in it's character, which occurred after the death of Mfr. Huskissou, was in its circum- stances-except as respected loss of life almost an exact parallel to the famous
 Revere disaster which happened in Massa- chusetts in August, 1871. It chanced on