Vermont Watchman And State Journal

TERRIBLE RAILROAD ACCIDENT—ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY PERSONS KILLED AND MANY MAIMED AND WOUNDED.

A deplorable catastrophe took place on Sunday evening week, on the Versailles and Meudon railway, by which one hundred and twenty persons were killed, or have since died of their wounds, and many maimed and wounded.

In honor of the King's fete, the waterworks in the gardens of Versailles were playing on Sunday, which attracted immense crowds from Paris. The train to which the dreadful accident occurred, left Versailles for Paris at half past five o'clock in the afternoon, and was crowded with passengers. "There were," says one account, "seventeen or eighteen wagons, with two engines before and one behind.

The velocity was excessive. When between Bellevue and Meudon, the axletree of the first machine broke, and stopping, the second ran over it, killing the stoker, and breaking the first machine in pieces, spilt its fire on the ground. Instantly six or seven wagons were broken in pieces, and the rest, running over the live fire of the broken engines, burst into flames. It is the custom on the Left Bank Railroad for the doors of the wagons to be closed, without any possibility of opening them except by keys in the hands of the conductors. No conductors were forthcoming, and thus the inmates of three of the wagons were burned."

From this account it is clear, that but for the custom of locking the passengers in the carriages, so awful a loss of life would not have taken place.