The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1912-11-15
.FLAGMAN CAUSE OF
FOURTEEN DEATHS
NEAR MONTE, LA.
EXCURSION TRAIN RUN INTO BY
FREIGHT WITH APPALLING
RESULTS.
CARS TELEsCOPED and BURNED

Cars TELESCOPED and BURNED
Four White Women and Baby and
Unidentified Child Were Killed and
Large Number Seriously Injured
and Crippled In the Crush.
NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 12.-Four-
teen lives were snuffed out and nine
ty passengers injured when through
freight train crashed into the rear
end Of northbound excursion train
on the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley
railroad near MONTE, La, at 1920
this morning.
The appalling disaster is charged
by the railroad officials to the negli-
gence of a fagman named Cunning
ham, who disappeared when the two
trains crashed together.
Of the dead, four are white women,
one white infant, four negro women
and five negro men.
Forty-one of the injured are hite
and forty-nine are colored. 1t is ex-
lpected that all of these, except posi-
bly, three, will recover. .
Although the scene of the wreck Is
but twenty seven miles north of New
Orleans and relief trains were sent
from this city and from Baton Rouge,
the railroad officials withheld from
the press information of the wreck
until late hour this morning.
An amazing feature of the wreck
was that the loss of life was confined
almost entirely to the last and fourth
from the last coaches of the excur-
sion train. The second from the rear
coach escaped injury almost entirely.
The excursion train was made up of
| ten coaches, with negroes Occupying
all but the two rear coaches.
The rear coach was demolished and
the third and fourth cars were tele-
1scoped, All three, together with the
freight engine were burned.
Pathetic storie sof the CHASTITY Lor-
ror were brought to New Orleans to-
| day by survivors, many of whom
barely escaped death. The confusion
and excitement incident to the dis
tressing scenes of death and suffer
ing was increased by the cries and
ordinations of the hundreds of ne
groes who ran about in a panic stick
en- condition.
A few of the negroes were self. pos
sessed and lent their earnest aid to
the heroic aid of white passengers to
save from the flames those pinioned
beneath the wreckage, but most of
lem ran wildly about, shrieKing,
-houting and praying.
Mrs. Thomas McGinness, wife of a
New Orleans plumber, was killed, and
her husband and two small babies
are in a local hospital. Three of the
other dead among the white victims
were relatives and neighbors in Zach
airy, La. At an early hour tonight no
one had appeared to claim the body
of the white infant and it Is supposed
that the child's mother persisted in
the wreck.
OF the injured, forty-six were
brought to New Orleans for medical
treatment and forty-four were taken
to Baton Rouge or to their homes.
The Louisiana railroad commission
today telegraphed to the interstate
commerce commission to join in an
Investigation of the wreck.
The dead are: Mrs. Victoria Mon
tegndo, Mrs. Jennie Comeaux, Mrs.
Chas. Greco, Zachary, La; Mrs. Thos.
McGuiness, New Orleans, La; white
child, unidentified.
OF the nine negroes whose bodies
were removed from the wreck, three
were women, one girl IA years Of
age, and five men.
n