sensible. We talked to one another, and tried to persuade
each other to lie as still as possible. He asked me to
pull off his handkerchief; which I managed to do. I
knew I was on the ground by the earth getting up my
nostrils. It was quite dark. I could feel pressure
across the lower part of my back and across the groin;
I felt no pressure about my head or shoulders. My head
was fixed. There was room for me to move my hands
and undo the handkerchief of the man across whom I
was lying. It was impossible for me to extricate myself.
The lower part of the body was quite dead. From lying
so long I was quite benumbed." Mr. James Smith,
accountant, of Camden Town, gave this evidence—"Before
the carriage was overthrown, I was thrown from my
seat on my back. All was confusion. More than three
hours elapsed before I was extricated. I spoke to the
poor soldier as he was lying across me. There was a
crush, and I felt an immense weight on my body, so
that I could hardly breathe. There was great pressure
on the lower part of my body. It was quite dark at
that time. Before the accident it was getting dark. I
had not space to move. I could not move my hands;
my body was completely jammed in. I could just move
my head. I did not once lose my recollection. I was
certainly for three hours in that position. I knew that
it was the soldier who was beside me, for I felt his
epaulettes. There was no other soldier in uniform. His
legs and the lower part of his body were thrown across
my body. I presume he died very quickly: I heard
him groan; after that I did not hear him again. I spoke
to him and then I found he was a corpse. His head was
leaning on my right shoulder, his face turned towards
me; so that had he breathed I should have known. I
heard him groan after the crash, as we were thrown
down; after that I heard him neither speak nor breathe.
I am anxious to speak of a boy who came to my
assistance, for I think my life was saved by him. When the
wood-work was sawn away so that my face could be
seen, a wet handkerchief was put down to me. The
boy crept through the aperture which had been made,
and held down a wet handkerchief to me, with great
danger, I believe, to himself. Without that I should
have fainted. I have since heard that the boy's name
is King, and that he is the son of a widow in Bicester."
Among the witnesses not in the train, who saw the
accident, were several persons who were waiting for the
arrival of their friends, under the impression that the
train would stop at Bicester. John Scott, a butcher,
saw the engine coming one way and the train go the
other; and as he saw the engine running towards him,
he "bolted into the porch—a bad place." The engine
came on, and stopped within two feet of the station-
master's house; it would have gone into the house but
that a rail curled up and entangled itself in the wheel
so as to stop the engine. A number of the railway
officials and other persons whose evidence was calculated
to throw light on the subject, were examined; and,
after an investigation which lasted five days, the
jury on the 15th returned a verdict, "That the
deceased died from accidental causes;" appending to
it special observations on the causes of the accident.
These observations are long and detailed; but their
substance is compressed in the following passages:—
"The jury find that the railway upon which the lamentable
event occurred is a branch line from the London and
North-Western Railway, diverging at Bletchley to
Oxford through Bicester, and that from Steeple Claydon
to Oxford is a single line only. The jury find that the
train to which the accident occurred was not only an
excursion train advertised by public notice for passengers
to leave London on Saturday and to return on the
following Monday, but it also formed a return excursion
train for passengers who had left Oxford for London on
the previous Monday, as well as for those who had left
Oxford and Bicester on the previous Tuesday. The jury
find that the notices to the public of these excursion
trains were imperfectly and vaguely drawn, for while
the company's officers at Bicester construed them to
mean that the Saturday's excursion train from London
to Oxford was to call at Bicester, the officers at Bletchley
construed them to mean that they should not stop at
Bletchley but go through to Oxford; and the jury
consider that both of those constructions might be fairly
adopted without the imputation of any neglect of duty
on their part as arising from such cause. The jury find
that the company's servants at Bicester were prepared
for the train to stop there for the Bicester passengers to
alight, but that the engineman in charge of the train
acted upon the belief that he was to go through to
Oxford without stopping at Bicester, and that such a
misunderstanding had a tendency to produce confusion in
the arrangements, and required more than ordinary
vigilance to be paid to the points and signals; and the jury
consider that there was a want of adequate instruction
to the guards from their superior officers as to the
stoppages of the train to be consistent with the public safety.
That, while the jury find that there was not that
measure of culpability in the conduct of any of the company's
servants as to warrant the finding of an adverse verdict
against any of them, yet they feel that it is due to the
public safety that some greater means of protection to
life and property than now exists should be resorted to
by the company, and that in the monopoly which railways
have achieved in travelling, the lives of passengers
should not be jeopardised at the shrine of interest and
dividends. The jury find that a single line of railway
necessarily involves more danger to passengers than a
double one, by reason of the trains having to pass over
junction-points in the one case which would not be
required in the other. They also find that trains are
occasionally delayed at the stations to prevent collision
with other trains, and hence that the enginemen on
duty are induced to travel at a greater speed than is
consistent with safety on a single line of railway, in order
to observe the times appointed for their arrival at
stations. These and other matters of more minute detail
impose upon the company's servants a degree of
watchfulness and care on a single line of railway almost super-
human; and that the pointsman, in the discharge of his
duties, is liable, from a mere accidental slip or fall, or
from a want of nerve, or that presence of mind which is
innocent or accidental cause of destruction to life and
property. The jury, therefore, earnestly urge upon the
directors of the company, as they value human life and
deplore the sacrifice of it, that they will cause a second
line of rails to be laid down without delay, as a means
of preventing the recurrence of such a dire calamity as
that which has now formed the subject of their very
anxious inquiry and most painful deliberation."

A Serious Accident happened on the Great-Northern
Railway on the evening of the 8th. Exhibition-trains
start from Hull and Lincoln, which should meet at
Boston, and be united there into a single train to London.
On the above evening, the Lincoln train was behind its
time at Boston, and the station-master sent on the Hull
train by itself. At Hornsey the Hull train discovered
an obstruction ahead: a passenger-train, which ought to
have been half an hour forward, was standing still. It
was found that a luggage-train had broken down, and
stopped the line. The guards having been sent back
properly, the passenger-train and the Hull excursion-
train had been in succession safely stopped. At last the
lameness of the luggage-engine was cured, and it was
just getting into motion, when there was a cry that
another train was coming up at full speed from the
North. It was the Lincoln excursion-train, which had
been too late to join the train from Hull at Boston.
Desperate efforts were made to start the standing-trains;
but it was plain that neither these could be got forward,
nor the arriving train be stopped, in time to prevent
collision: so a shout was raised of "Jump, jump!" As
many of the passengers as had presence of mind and
activity enough did jump, and scramble up the bank into
the fields. One of them looked back, and describes what
he saw. "The last carnage was smashed to atoms, as
also the next; the third was lifted right off the rails up
into the air, and seemed to fall over topsyturvy on to the
down-line of rails. The passengers were jumping in
myriads from the carriages. Some appeared to throw
themselves out of the shattered carriages, leaping through
the broken sides. The engineers, &c., threw themselves
off just before the collision." Numbers had their faces
covered with blood, but there was no instant death, and
only one injury which seemed likely to be fatal. The
Rev. Mr. Snell, of Fleet, near Holbeach, suffered a