The railway accident which took place near Paris on - Sunday
night, and in which forty-three persons were killed and over one hundred injured, was one of the worst ever recorded. At 9 o'clock, a train of twenty-three carriages left Joinville-le-Pont, on the Vincennes line, and, after stopping at three or four stations, arrived at St. Mande, which is situated just outside the Paris fortifications. Here there was a great crowd of people anxious to get into the train, and much delay was caused by the inability of the passengers to find seats, and by an altercation between the officials and some men who insisted on getting into the ladies' carriage, as they could find seats nowhere else. "While this altercation was going on," says the Times' report, "and just as the train was about to start, an extra train dashed into the brake-van and rear carriages. The engine fire of the second train set fire to the brake-van and hindmost carriage, and the occupants of them who were not crushed to death were burnt or suffocated by the flames." The scene on the platform was terrible in the extreme, and it was 4 o'clock before all the bodies had been extricated. Who is to blame for the accident has not as yet been decided. In one pathetic case the bodies of a wife and daughter, too much mutilated to be recognised by the husband and father, had to be identified by the little dog of the house- hold, which whined miserably over them.
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