Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 36

On a Georgia railroad there is a conductor named Snell, a very clever, sociable man, fond of a joke, quick at repartee, and faithful in the discharge of his duties. One day as his train well filled with pa.s.sengers, was crossing a low bridge over a wide stream, some four or five feet deep, the bridge broke down, precipitating the two pa.s.senger cars into the stream. As the pa.s.sengers emerged from the wreck they were borne away by the force of the current. Snell had succeeded in catching hold of some bushes that grew on the bank of the stream, to which he held for dear life. A pa.s.senger less fortunate came rus.h.i.+ng by. Snell extended one hand, saying, "Your ticket, sir; give me your ticket!" The effect of such a dry joke in the midst of the water may be imagined.

-_Harper's Magazine_.

AN OLD SCOTCH LADY ON THE LOSS OF HER BOX.

Dean Ramsay in his _Reminiscences_ remarks:-"Some curious stories are told of ladies of this cla.s.s, as connected with the novelties and excitement of railway travelling. Missing their luggage, or finding that something has gone wrong about it, often causing very terrible distress, and might be amusing, were it not to the sufferer so severe a calamity.

I was much entertained with the earnestness of this feeling, and the expression of it from an old Scottish lady, whose box was not forthcoming at the station where she was to stop. When urged to be patient, her indignant exclamation was, "I can bear ony pairtings that may be ca'ed for in G.o.d's providence; but I canna stan' pairtin' frae ma claes."

RAILWAY MANNERS.

A gentleman was travelling by rail from Breslau to Oppeln and found himself alone with a lady in a second-cla.s.s compartment. He vainly endeavoured to enter into conversation with the other occupant of the carriage; her answers were invariably curt and snappish. Baffled in his attempts, he proceeded to light a cigar to while away the time. Then the lady said to him: "I suppose you have never travelled second-cla.s.s before, else you would know better manners." Her travelling companion quietly rejoined: "It is true, I have hitherto only studied the manners of the first and third-cla.s.ses. In the first-cla.s.s the pa.s.sengers are rude to the porters, in the third-cla.s.s the porters are rude to the pa.s.sengers. I now discover that in the second-cla.s.s the pa.s.sengers are rude to each other."

A BRAVE GIRL.

Kate Sh.e.l.ley, to whom the Iowa Legislature has just given a gold medal and $200, is fifteen years old. She lives near Des Moines, at a point where a railroad crosses a gorge at a great height. One night during a furious storm the bridge was carried away. The first the Sh.e.l.leys knew of it was when they saw the headlight of a locomotive flash down into the chasm. Kate climbed to the remains of the bridge with great difficulty, using an improvised lantern. The engineer's voice answered her calls, but she could do nothing for him, and he was drowned. As an express train was almost due, she then started for the nearest station, a mile distant. A long, high bridge over the Des Moines River had to be crossed on the ties-a perilous thing in stormy darkness. Kate's light was blown out, and the wind was so violent that she could not stand, so she crawled across the bridge, from timber to timber, on her hands and knees. She got to the station exhausted, but in time to give the warning, though she fainted immediately.

-_Detroit Free Press_, May 13th, 1882.

SHUT UP IN A LARGE BOX.

The Merv correspondent of the _Daily News_ in a letter dated the 30th of April, 1881, remarks, "I was very much amused by the description given me by some Tekkes of the Serdar's departure for Russia. It seems that my informants accompanied him up to the point where the trans-Caspian railway is in working order. 'They shut Tockme Serdar and two others in a large box (sanduk) and locked him in, and then dragged him away across the Sahara. And,' added the speakers, 'Allah only knows what will happen to them inside that box.' The box, I need hardly say, was a railway carriage."

AWFUL DEATH ON A RAILROAD BRIDGE.

A man commonly known as "Billy" Cooper, of the town of Van Etten, was walking on the railroad track at a point not far distant from his home.

In crossing the railroad bridge he made a miss-step, and, slipping, fell between the ties, but his position was so cramped that he was unable to get out of the way of danger. There, suspended in that awful manner, with the body dangling below the bridge, he heard a train thundering along in the distance, approaching every moment nearer and nearer. No one will ever know the struggles for life which the poor fellow made, but they were futile; with arms pinioned to his sides he was unable to signal the engineer. The train came sweeping on upon its helpless victim until within a few feet of the spot, when the engineer saw the man's head and endeavoured to stop his heavy train. But too late; the moving ma.s.s pa.s.sed over, cutting his head from the shoulders as clean as it could have been done by the guillotine itself. Cooper was 60 years of age.

-_Ithaca_ (N.Y.) _Journal_.

THAT ACCURSED DRINK.

An English traveller in Ireland, greedy for information and always fingering the note-book in his breast pocket, got into the same railway carriage with a certain Roman Catholic archbishop. Ignorant of his rank, and only perceiving that he was a divine, he questioned him pretty closely about the state of the country, whisky drinking, etc. At last he said, "You are a parish priest, yourself, of course." His grace drew himself up. "I _was_ one, sir," he answered, with icy gravity. "Dear, dear," was the sympathizing rejoinder. "That accursed drink, I suppose."

RAILWAY UP VESUVIUS.

This railway, the last new project in mountain-climbing, is now finished.

It is 900 metres in length, and will enable tourists to ascend by it to the very edge of the crater. The line has been constructed with great care upon a solid pavement, and it is believed to be perfectly secure from all incursions of lava. The mode of traction is by two steel ropes put in motion by a steam engine at the foot of the cone. The wheels of the carriages are so made as to be free from any danger of leaving the rails, besides which each carriage is furnished with an exceedingly powerful automatic brake, which, should the rope by any chance break, will stop the train almost instantaneously. One of the chief difficulties of the undertaking was the water supply; but that has been obviated by the formation of two very large reservoirs, one at the station, the other near the observatory.

-_Railway Times_, 1879.

EXTRAORDINARY ESCAPE OF BALLOONISTS.

Yesterday evening, Aug. 6th, 1883, a special train of "empties," which left Charing-cross at 5.55 to pick up returning excursionists from Gravesend, had some extraordinary experiences, such as perhaps had hardly ever occurred on a single journey. On leaving Dartford, where some pa.s.sengers were taken up, the train was proceeding towards Greenhithe, when the driver observed on the line a donkey, which had strayed from an adjoining field. An endeavour was made to stop the train before the animal was reached, but without success, and the poor beast was knocked down and dragged along by the firebox of the engine. The train was stopped, and with great difficulty the body of the animal, which was killed, was extricated from beneath the engine. While this was in progress, a balloon called the "Sunbeam," supposed to come either from Sydenham or Tunbridge Wells, pa.s.sed over the line, going in the direction of Northfleet. The two aeronauts in the car were observed to be short of gas, and were throwing out ballast, but, notwithstanding this, the balloon descended slowly, and when some distance ahead of the train was, to the horror of the pa.s.sengers, seen to drop suddenly into the railway cutting two or three hundred yards only in advance of the approaching train. The alarm whistle was sounded, and the brakes put on, and as the balloon dragged the car and its occupants over the down line there seemed nothing but certain death for them; but suddenly the inflated monster, now swaying about wildly, took a sudden upward flight, and, dragging the car clear of the line, fell into an adjoining field just when the train was within a hundred yards of the spot. The escape was marvellous.

PULLING A TOOTH BY STEAM.

"Dummy," is a deaf mute newsman on the Long Island Railroad. Lately he had suffered much in mind and body from an aching tooth. He did not like dentists, but he resolved that the tooth must go. He procured a piece of twine, and tied one end of it to the tooth and the other end to the rear of an express train. When the train started, Dummy ran along the platform a short distance, and then dropped suddenly on his knees. The engine whistled, and dummy cried, but the train took the tooth.

A HEAVY SLEEPER.

It happens, in numerous instances, that virtuous resolves are made overnight with respect to early rising, which resolves, when put to the test, are doomed only to be broken. Some years ago a clergyman, who had occasion to visit the West of England on very important business, took up his quarters, late at night, at a certain hotel adjacent to a railway, with a view of starting by the early train on the following morning.

Previous to retiring to rest, he called the "boots" to him, told him that he wished to be called for the early train, and said that it was of the utmost importance that he should not oversleep himself. The reverend gentleman at the same time confessed that he was a very heavy sleeper, and as there would be probably the greatest difficulty in awakening him, he (the "boots") was to resort to any means he thought proper in order to effect his object. And, further, that if the business were effectually accomplished, the fee should be a liberal one. The preliminaries being thus settled, the clergyman sought his couch, and "boots" left the room with the air of a determined man. At a quarter to five on the following morning, "boots" walked straight to "No. twenty-three," and commenced a vigorous rattling and hammering at the door, but the only answer he received was "All right!" uttered in a very faint and drowsy tone. Five minutes later, "boots" approached the door, placing his ear at the keyhole, and detecting no other sound than a most unearthly snore, he unceremoniously entered the room, and laying his brawny hands upon the prostrate form of the sleeper, shook him violently and long. This attack was replied to by a testy observation that he "knew all about it, and there was not the least occasion to shake him so." "Boots" thereupon left the room, somewhat doubtingly, and only to return in a few minutes afterwards and find the Rev. Mr. - as sound asleep as ever. This time the clothes were stripped off, and a species of baptismal process was adopted, familiarly known as "cold pig." At this a.s.sault the enraged gentleman sat bolt upright in bed, and with much other bitter remark, denounced "boots" as a barbarous follow. An explanation was then come to, and the drowsy man professed he understood it all, and was _about_ to arise. But the gentleman who officiated at the - hotel, having had some experience in these matters, placed no reliance upon the promise he had just received, and shortly visited "No. twenty-three" again. There he found that the occupant certainly had got up, but it was only to replace the bedclothes and to lie down again. "Boots" now felt convinced that this was one of those cases which required prompt and vigorous handling, and without more ado, therefore, he again stripped off the upper clothing, and seizing hold of the under sheet, he dragged its depository bodily from off the bed. The sleeping man, sensible of the unusual motion, and dreamily beholding a stalwart form bent over him, became impressed with the idea that a personal attack was being made upon him, probably with a view to robbery and murder. Under this conviction, he, in his descent, grasped "boots" firmly by the throat, the result being that both bodies thus came to the floor with a crash. Here the two rolled about for some seconds in all the agonies of a death struggle, until the unwonted noise and the cries of the a.s.sailants brought several persons from all parts of the hotel, and they, seeing two men rolling frantically about in each other's arms, and with the hand of each grasping the other's throat, rushed in and separated them. An explanation was of course soon given. The son of the church was effectually awakened, he rewarded the "boots," and went off by the train.

Fortune subsequently smiled upon "boots," and in the course of time he became proprietor of a first-rate hotel. In the interval the Rev. Mr. - had risen from a humble curate to the grade of a dean. Having occasion to visit the town of -, he put up at the house of the ex-boots. The two men saw and recognized each other, and the affair of the early train reverted to the mind of both. "It was a most fortunate circ.u.mstance,"

said the dean, "that I did not oversleep myself on that morning, for from the memorable journey that followed, I date my advancement in the Church.

But," he continued, with an expression that betokened some tender recollection, "if I ever should require you to wake me for an early train again, would you mind placing a mattress or feather-bed on the floor?"

-_The Railway Traveller's Handy Book_.