Litchfield enquirer., 1875-11-11
(From The Atlantis Monthiy.l OF SOME RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.

OF SOME RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.
 The assertion has strange. at first. in
 deed, almost harsh and brutal sound,
 and yet, it is unquestionably true, that, so far as the general welfare, the common
 good of mankind is concerned, few lives
 are so proftably expended as those of the
 unfortunate victims of railroad accidents.
 This, it is true, may not be saying much;
 for it is a melancholy fact that there are
 few things of which either nature or man
 is, as a rule, more lavish than human life;
 provided always that the methods used in
 extinguishing it are customary and not
 unduly obtrusive on the sight and nerves.
 As a necessary. consequence of this waste
 fitness, it follows also that the results
 which flow from the extinguIshmeut of
 the individual life are, as a rule, pitiably
 small. Any person curious to satisfy him.
 self as to the truth of either or both of
 these propositions can do so easily enough
 by visiting those frequent haunts in which
 poverty and typhoid turk in company; or
 yet more easily by a careful study of the
 weekly bills of mortality as they are issu- ed by the authorities of any great city. Indeed, compared with the massive bat talions daily sacrificed in the perpetual conflict which mankind seems forever doomed to wage against intemperance, bad sewerage, and worse ventilation, the vic- tims of regular warfare by sea and land count az but single spies. The worst of it is, too, that if the blood of the martyrs Is in these cases at all the seed of the church, it is a seed terribly slow of germ. ination. Each step in the slow progress is a human Golgotha.
 .~ Rs~ sl, 1R railroad disasters; they. at least. do not lose their lives without great and immedi- ate compensating benefits to mankind. After each new railroad "horror," as it is called, the whole world travels with an ap- causes which led to 1t are anxiously inves- tigated by ingenious men, new appliances are Invented, new precautions are impos- ed, a greater and more watchful care is in- culcated. And hence it has resulted that each year, and in obvious consequence of each fresh catastrophe, travel by rail has become safer and safer, until it has been said and with no incOnsilerable degree of truth too, that the very safest place into which man can put himself is the inside of first class railroad carriage on a train in full motion. .-
 The study of railroad horrors is, there fore, the furthest possible from being useless one, and a record of them is hard ly less instructive than interesting. If carried too far it is apt, as matter for light reading, to become somewhat monotOn- ous; though, about railroad accidents as about everything else, there is none the less an almost endless variety Even in the forms of sudden death on the rail, na- ture seems to take grim delight in an in finitude of surprises.
 With true dramatic propriety, the yhastly record, which has since grown so ong. begins with the opening of the first literally on the very morning which finally ushered the great system in- 10 existence as a successfully accomplish eP fact, the eventful 18th of September, 1880.
 DEATH OF MIR. HUsKIssoN. bright and warm; the city was thronged with strangers. while gay and eager crowd ds lined the new throughfare on either side its entire length from Mount Olives cut to Manchester. The arrange ments were very perfect, and, during its earlier hours, the great gala occasion likely to pass away unmarred by any mishap. A brilliant party, consisting of the directors of the new enterprise and their invited guests, were to pass over the road from Liverpool to Manchester, to dine at the latter place, and return to Liv- erpool in the afternoon. Their number was large and they filled eight trains of carriages. drawn by as many locomotives. The Duke of Wellington, then prime min lster, was the most prominent parsonage there, and he with his party occupied the state cars, which were drawn by the loco motive Northumbrian, upon which George Stevenson himself that day oficiated as engineer. In car of one of the succeed ing trans was Mir. William Huskisson, then a member of Parliament for Liver pool and eminent among the more promi- nent public men of the day as inancier and economist. He had been very active in promoting the construction of the Liv- erpool < Manchester road, and now that it was completed he had exerted himself greatly to render its opening day success worthy an enterprise the far reaching con- sequences of which he was among the few to appreciate. All the trains had started promptly from Liverpool, and had pro- ceeded gayly along through an ovation of applause until at eleven o'clock they had reached Parksi6e, seventeen miles upon their journey, where it had been arranged that the locomotives were to replenish their supplies of water. As soon ss the trains had stopped. disregarding every caution against tbeir so doing. the excited and joyous passengers left their carriages and mingled together, eagerly congratu- lating one another upon the unalloyed success of the occasion. Mir. Huskisson, though in poor health and somewhat lame, was one of the most excited of the throng, I and among the first to thus expose him. self. Presently he caught the eye of the Duke of Wellington, standing at the door of his car. Now it so happend that for sometime previous a coolness had existed between the two public men, the duke having as premier, with that military curtness for which he was famed, dismiss ed Mir. Huskisson from the cabinet of which he had been a member, and that ,as was generally considered, without any sui
 icient cause. There had in fact been a most noticeable absence of courtesey in that ministerial crisis. The two now met face to face for the first time since the breach between them had taken place, and the dukes manner evinced . disposition to be conciliatory which was by no means usual with that austere soldier. Mir. Illus. kisson at once responded to the overture. and, going up to the door of the state car. riage, he and his former chief shook hands and then entered into conversation. As
 they were talking. the duke seated in his car and Mir Huskissou standing between
 the tracks, the Rocket locomotive-the
 same famous Rocket which a year previ-
 ous had won the five hundred pounds
 prize, and by so doing established forever
 the feasibility of rapid steam locomotion
 came along upon the other track to take
 it's place at the watering station. It came
 up slowly and so silently that it's approach
 was hardly noticed: until, suddenly, an
 alarm was given, and. as everyone imme-
 diately ran to resume his place, some
 commotion naturally rensued. In addi-
 tion to being lame. Mfr Huskisson seemed
 also under these circumstances to be quite
 agItated, and, instead of quietly standing against the side of the carrirge and allow. ing the Rocket to pass, he nervously tried to get round it's open door, which was swifQiDg out across the space between the