the line, and at a speed which it was difficult to calculate. The
spectators were horrified; there was not an instant to be lost; but an
instant sufficed to the experienced engineer to determine the safest
course under the circumstances. Without attempting to cross the road,
which would have been almost certain destruction, he at once took his
position exactly midway between the up and down lines, and drawing the
skirts of his coat close around him, allowed the two trains to sweep past
him; when to the great relief of those who witnessed the exciting scene,
he was found untouched upon the road. Without the engineer's experience
which enabled him to form so rapid a decision, there can be no doubt that
he must have perished.

--_The Temple Anecdotes_.

THE VERSAILLES ACCIDENT IN 1842.

Mr. Charles F. Adams thus describes it:--"On the 8th of May, 1842, there
happened in France one of the most famous and horrible railroad
slaughters ever recorded. It was the birthday of the king, Louis
Phillipe, and, in accordance with the usual practice, the occasion had
been celebrated at Versailles by a great display of the fountains. At
half-past five o'clock these had stopped playing, and a general rush
ensued for the trains then about to leave for Paris. That which went by
the road along the left bank of the Seine was densely crowded, and was so
long that it required two locomotives to draw it. As it was moving at a
high rate of speed between Bellevue and Menden, the axle of the foremost
of these two locomotives broke, letting the body of the engine drop to
the ground. It instantly stopped, and the second locomotive was then
driven by its impetus on top of the first, crushing its engineer and
fireman, while the contents of both the fire-boxes were scattered over
the roadway and among the _debris_. Three carriages crowded with
passengers were then piled on top of this burning mass, and there crushed
together into each other. The doors of the train were all locked, as was
then, and indeed is still, the custom in Europe, and it so chanced that
the carriages had all been newly painted. They blazed up like pine
kindlings. Some of the carriages were so shattered that a portion of
those in them were enabled to extricate themselves, but no less than
forty were held fast; and of these such as were not so fortunate as to be
crushed to death in the first shock perished hopeles