fortunately escaped without further hurt than some
severe contusions about the head and face. The
Midland Company supply tourniquets to their trains;
two were applied to the limbs of the sufferer, and he
was conveyed to Derby. It was found necessary to
amputate both legs; but the man is expected to recover.
Kirk was considered one of the best engine-drivers on
the line.

There was a great Fire at Tottenham very early on
Sunday morning, the 8th inst. Tottenham Mills were
very extensive premises, on an island surrounded by the
Lea: one pile of building was an oil-mill, another a
corn-mill, with the usual offices attached; and there
were also dwelling-houses adjacent. The fire originated
in the oil-mill, where extensive alterations were in
progress; and thence it spread to the corn-mill, which
was only eighteen feet distant; both the mills were
destroyed, with some of the minor buildings and an old
malt-house; the dwellings were but partially burnt.
While the fire was raging, a large vessel filled with oil
burst, and the flames ascended to a great height; other
vessels subsequently gave way, and streams of blazing
oil floated down the Lea. A great number of persons
will be thrown out of employment by the disaster. The
proprietor, Mr. Edward Bell, was partially insured.

Four men were Killed by Lightning during a violent
thunder-storm at Manchester, on the morning of the
10th. Eight cottages were in course of construction in
Ridgway Street, in the fields near Clayton Hamlet. The
lightning struck the east corner of the block, entered
the roof, and ran along the whole range, some portion
descending to the earth by every window. All the
people employed, and Mrs. Fletcher, wife of the owner,
were struck by the lightning; some were not hurt much,
but four were killed outright. The fatal strokes occurred
at three distinct places, two of the sufferers having been
sitting together on a window-sill, while the others were
at work in different houses.

A Serious Accident on the Western Valleys Railway,
which extends from Newport to Blaina, took place on
the 11th. The line was recently converted from a tramway,
solely used for the conveyance of mineral and
other heavy traffic, into a railway, but many of the
objectionable features which marked it in its previous
condition, such as great curves, &c, still remain. The
train was proceeding along at its accustomed speed
until nearing the curves, when the speed was decreased.
Approaching Llanhithel, where there is a great curve,
the speed was lessened, but suddenly a collision of all
the carriages took place. On looking out the passengers
were greatly alarmed to perceive that the engine had
run off the line, and was lying, with one or two of the
carriages, on its side in the ditch on the road side.
Among the numerous passengers still in safety were two
or three gentlemen who leaped through the fastened
windows of their carriages, and hastened to the assistance
of the sufferers. The driver was found unhurt by
the road-side; but the stoker was discovered beneath
the engine, some of the projecting portions of which
were pressing into the poor fellow's body, and the
escaping steam from one of the valves was scalding him
where he lay groaning. After some time he was safely
got out. Though found to be severely scalded, and
greatly bruised, it was ascertained that no bones were
broken. The passengers in the next carriage were
released, suffering from contusions and bruises.

Mr. Frank Hartland, who was for many years a great
favourite on the London stage as a pantomimist, was
Accidentally Killed on the 16th. A plank having been
detached from a building scaffold in Mount street, when
he was passing, struck him with great violence on the
side of the head, completely crushing in the skull. He
died on his way to St. Thomas's Hospital. Mr. Hartland
has left a large family, hitherto entirely dependent
upon him, to deplore their untimely loss.

The emigrant ship the Trusty, of Scarborough,
having on board nearly two hundred emigrants, has
been Lost off the shores of Cape Graspe, while on a
passage to Quebec. When the vessel struck, against
the command of the master, one of the boats was
lowered and cut away from the vessel. It contained in
all, about twenty persons. An attempt was made to
gain the shore, but the boat was capsized by it before
it had reached many yards from the wreck, and the
whole of the helpless creatures perished. For eight
hours the position of those on the wreck was one of
great peril; the sea was sweeping over her decks, and
it was expected every moment she would go to pieces.
Soon after day had broken a schooner bore down to the
spot, and, with the aid of the crews of two other vessels
that came up. the whole that were clinging to the wreck
were taken off in safety. Their luggage, however, was
lost, for in a few days the vessel broke up, and was a
total wreck. The emigrants have since been forwarded
to Quebec.

Another dreadful Railway Accident has taken place,
followed by the Suicide of a pointsman, through whose
fault it appears (partly at least) to have happened. It
was on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The
train to which the accident occurred was the one leaving
Liverpool, via Bolton, to Manchester at six in the evening,
and due at Bolton at a quarter before nine. On the
evening of the 24th, this train had lost time so
considerably as to be nearly an hour late. When it arrived
within a mile of Bolton, the station and all the intermediate
distance were blocked up with trains which had
arrived before it. The first of these, or at least the
principal one, and the one leading to the detention of
the others, was a very heavy passenger-train, consisting
of 36 carriages, and did not arrive at Bolton until
twenty minutes past nine. The passengers were partly
travelling towards Manchester, but a great portion of
them were for Yorkshire; and this is the station where
the train had to be separated into two parts, one of
which would have to leave the Manchester line for a
mile further south to go via Bury, Heywood, and Rochdale,
to Yorkshire. Unfortunately however, the
carriages had been indiscriminately packed with passengers
going in both directions, and full twenty minutes were
lost in disentangling the mass and getting the right
passengers into the right train. Whilst this train was
at the station, a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and
ultimately a sixth (the one smashed) came up. The
second train was an excursion train of 36 carriages from
Liverpool; the third was a luggage-train from Liverpool
to Manchester; the fourth was an excursion-train
of 25 carriages from Fleetwood (behind its time) to
Manchester; the fifth was a luggage-train—principally
laden with timber—from Liverpool to Bradford,
Yorkshire. These five trains probably numbered altogether
upwards of 150 carriages, and stretched over nearly a mile
of the line, to a place called Bullfield, where a pointsman
is placed, having charge of two signals upon a
high post in the form of discs. The pointsman's cabin.
is close to his points, but the signals are 250 yards
beyond (or further from Bolton), and are worked by
means of a lever and a wire about six yards from the
cabin. Beyond this cabin the line of trains stretched
about 125 yards, or half way to the signal. The signal
would have been seen for upwards of a mile in the
Liverpool and Preston direction, had it been lighted,
but it appears that the day's duty of pointsmen ordinarily
ends at half-past eight in the evening, and he had left
his post at a quarter to nine on this occasion, putting
out the light at the signal on this as on other occasions,
although it is alleged that he had received instructions
that there would be extra or excursion-trains on this
occasion, and that he must remain until they had all
passed. The night was exceedingly dark, and when
the sixth train (which was not an excursion or special
train, but the regular late passenger-train from Liverpool
to Manchester) came up, the driver would not
come in sight of the preceding one, owing to the curve,
until he reached the place where the signal post is
placed, a distance of about 125 yards. Whether the
driver was not on the look-out, or whether it was
impossible for him to stop in so short space with a train
of sixteen carriages going at a high speed, has not yet
been ascertained; but the result was that he ran into
the luggage-train with great force, and the collision was
so fearful that the three first carriages (third class), were
smashed very badly, the second one being turned up on
its fore-end between the other two, with the ten
passengers in it feet uppermost, and almost on their heads.
The terror of the passengers was beyond description.
It is said that their screams were heard at the distance