Rogue River Courier

FRENCH COMMISSION IN DERAILLED TRAIN WRECK

Special Leaves Track While the Visitors Are at Dinner Shaking Them Badly, but No Serious Injury. They Resume Journey in New Train

With the French War Commission, Effingham, Ill., May 8—The French special was derailed last night near Arcola, Ill. No one was injured.

It was learned early today that investigation at the scene of the accident disclosed a broken rail about 20 feet behind the rear end of the wrecked train. This might have been broken by the two heavy engines pulling the train. The special was derailed, experts decided, when cars bumped off the rails and the wheels shattered the fish plates which join the rails, thus allowing them to spread.

Government officials practically decided today that the derailment was an accident.

The train was composed of five steel cars drawn by two heavy engines and was running eastward at 40 miles an hour over the Pennsylvania. Three cars were ditched and all aboard shaken up, but none hurt.

After the jolt, M. Hovelacque, French Inspector-general of public instruction, Viviani, Admiral Zacharias, De Laussan and other members of the party regarded their escape as miraculous. If the cars had been French, or wooden construction, they agreed that many might have been killed. Some members of the French commission inclined to the belief that German plotters had spread the rails.

Every member of the French commission was calm and collected throughout. They were sitting in the diner when the crash came. The luxuriously appointed car, bedecked with red and white roses, became a scene of turbulent confusion as it banged along the ties. Joffre and others were showered with unsolicited bouquets as vases upset. Plates of soup, ice cream, chicken, asparagus and salad flew into the laps of the Frenchmen. Joffre grasped the window ledge and remained unperturbed.

Effingham, Ill., May 8.—Traveling on a new special train, the French war commissioners resumed their tour of the middle west today, following the wreck which shook up members of the party last night. The new special was to leave Effingham at 9 a. m. Its schedule was largely kept secret.