Investigating An Accident

Superintendent Warren of the Eastern Illinois railway was telling the other evening of a certain eugineer in the employ of the road who had been repeatedly cautioned against running too fast. He was running a freight train, and on one portion of his divisiou there was a steep hill. His orders were to never permit his train to go down that hill faster than 15 miles an hour, butit was general belief that whenever he had a safe opportunity he sailed down that grade just as fast as the wheels would turn. One day he did go down the hill so fast that the entire train left the track at the bottom, and there were box cars piled up high. An investigation iramediately followed, and the engineer, in railroad parlance, was put on the "carpet. " He sworein the most terms that he went down the hill not faster thau 15 miles an hour, but that just before reaching the bottom he lost control of the airbrake, and the speed became so great the train could not keep th6 track; henee the wreek, for which he ras not responsible. "But," said his superintendent, "we have a man here, a farmer, who was on the hillside that day when you came down. He stood at the edge of a clearing, saw you at the top and all the way down, and he will swear that he never saw a train going so fast in all his life, and he is a man 60 years old. He says that it was next to an impossibility to see the wheels. What do you say to that?" The engineer never hesitated. "I kuow the man. I saw him the day after the wreek, and he told the same story to me, ouly there was a little inore to it. " "What was that?" "Why, he told me that it was the first train of cars he had ever seen in his life, and I don't think he would be a very good judge of speed. ' ' There was silence in the room for a few moments, and the engineer got off