Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1914 — QUICK TO EXTEND AID [ARTICLE]

QUICK TO EXTEND AID

MINISTER'S TRIBUTE TO FINE QUALITIES OF RAILROADERS. ' 7' " ~ ’ '• '* • ■■ • Hl* Experience is That Both Manager* and Trainmen Are Eager at Any Time to Help Out the ~Unfortunate. One sometimes hears that large railway corporations have no souls—that the magnates who direct the affairs seek only for dividends and care nothing whatever about the men who earn them. In like manner, also, thßf traveling public receives a secondary consideration, writes the Rev. Charles T. rector of Bury, Quebec. While that may be true In a few isolated cases, my own experience, extending over, twenty years with the Canadian Pacific railroad —proves directly to the contrary. First, in regard to the men - themselves : Two section foremen and their families occupied the station house in a desolate and wild piece, of country eight miles from the nearest village. In order to minister to the railroads in this locality permission was readily granted by the president—now Sir Thomas Shaughnessy —which enabled me to use whatever train —passenger or freight—that first came^along. The engineers and trainmen soon became my best friends. Here is one example: An urgent call came to me to visit a very old woman, the mother of one of the section gang. She was lying seriously ill, twelve miles distant, in a log house beside the track. It was just after a severe snow storm and the lines were blocked in places. A special came in with a rq--tary -plow.. and empty passenger coaches for the engineiS was a “wild Irishman,” but a warmerhearted man never handled the throttle. A quick run was made. The train stopped opposite the log house to let me off, the next minute I was at the bedside of the poor woman. For some time week-night services were held at the station for the men and their families. The congregation grew—settlels around were glad to avail themselves of this privilege. A ,little church was built and afterward a scboolhouse. It was a hot summer evening. The Soo express had just left the divisional point at Chalk river. Shortly afterward word came over to the boarding house that a man over at the depot was badly injured. Hurrying over, I found a French Canadian, who couldn’t speak a word of English, bleeding profusely from a wound accidentally inflicted by bis, own ax. He had been working in the woods and a main artery had been severed. My surgical knowledge enabled me to arrest the bleeding, but proper treatment was needed immediately to save the man’s life. He was suffering intensely. Pembroke, a town 22 miles distant, was where I wanted to take my patient, but there was not a train in sight—not even a freight was being madden in the yard. The Winnipeg express would not arrive for nearly four hours. I appealed for help. Soon tfye dispatcher received instructions to order out a light engine from the roundhouse. In the case of an emergency no other man’s- brains and limbs move faster than the railroader's in. an errand of mercy, and no hearts beat more sympathetically. Quickly the engineer had his locomotive coupled to a freight car and backed up to the depot. The usual declaration being signed by me on behalf of myself and the injured man, we carried the sufferer on a stretcher into the car. The kind-hearted engineer came in and asked me: “Will it hurt to run fast, sir?” My reply was: “The quicker the better.” Those twenty-tw'o miles were covered in record *time.. My patient was duly landed at the hospital, the arteries tied up properly, the foot stewed up, and eventually he fully recovered.