Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-06-19
Dreadful Railroad Disaster in
Switzerland.

A railroad disaster of the most horrible
character took place in Switzerland last
Sunday on the Monchenstein and Basic rail
way, when a long eXcursiont rain crowded
with people on their way to attend a musi-
cal ftte fell through bridge, and the two
locomotives and several cars and their in
mates were piled up in a shapeless mass of
wreckage in the stream below. The esti-
mates of the number of killed and injured
vary, one report placing the figures at l2O
killed and hundreds more or less injured.
Many of the latter must die. The bridge,
or vaduct, which collapsed and caused the
accident, had only recently been built and
had Just been strengthened after sustaining
damage by the rising of the river The
victims are mostly leading citizens of Basic
and its neighborhood, and the scenes in the
city of mourning are uncommonly touch
ing. Several families are practically wiped
out of existence by the disaster.
LATER DETAILS OF THE DISASTER.
The details of the disaster prove that the
bridge broke down under the sheer weight
of the locomotives. The first engine had
passed over safely, but was dragged back
by the second engine when the whole fabric
collapsed, the engines and train topping
into the water. The first engine went into
the river chimney first and turned over on
its side The second fell vertically and
remains standing upright in the stream.
Five cars were precipitated into the water
AS the wreckage was cleared away the
bodies of the dead and dying were found
crushed together in CHASTITY confusion amid
the ineXtricable mass of debris. The whole
night long the rescuers toiled by the light
of piles of burning fir logs, cleaning an oc-
casional survivor out of the ruins. The
means of the injured heard in the early
hours of the night ceased as death or rescue
reached them. Most of the bodies recov-
cred were dreadfully mutilated. A dead
mother was found holding in her arms her
lfeless baby, while another child lay across
her body. Several other family groups
We're seen Joined by a common fate. The
total number of the dead is now put at
100, and the number of the injured at
about 300.
The Colorado conference of the Method
list Episcopal church at Denver recently,
dropped from membership in the church
Rev. Sam Small for alleged shortages in
his accounts as president of the Methodist
university at Ogden, Utah.
The main building of the abbatoir on the
west side of the Schuylkill river, opposite
Arch street, Philadelphia, was completely
destroyed by fire early Sunday morning.
In the store-room were 1000 carcasses of
beef which were entirely consumed.
An American who is in the custom ser
vice at Whampoa, China, says that when
the grip swept over the Chinese empire in
February last it numbered its victims by
the hundred thousand. Ten thousand
We're buried in one day. The disease pre-
vailed for 30 days.
Reports of the French wheat crop which
have been compiled show that it will reach
only half an average.
The name of Sir William Gordon Cum
ming, the plaintiff in the baccarat scandal
trial, has been stricken from the English
army list. A leading Edinburg newspaper
says the reason the Prince of Wales stood
by the Wilson's, at whose house the gam
bling took place, was that Mr.. Arthur Will
son loaned him 81 ,OOO, 900 to help him out