Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1872 — How a Young Lady Saved Her Life on a Railroad Trestle. [ARTICLE]

How a Young Lady Saved Her Life on a Railroad Trestle.

A short distance this side of Union, on the Union & Titusville Railroad, there is a very long and very high trestle, and one upon which nobody ventures who is at all inclined to be light-headed. Immemediately this side of the trestle, there is a slight curve in the road, so that a person walking on it cannot be seen by the engineer of an approaching train until it is nearly upon him. On Friday last, as Wm. Toles, engineer, came around the curve at a good rate of speed, he was horrified to discover a lady about the middle of the trestle, and hardly a train’s length ahead of him. Quick as thought, although his hair was making frantic efforts to lift his bat off, “Billy” whistled down brakes gave her sand, and threw back the rowrsing lever, while at the same time he knew that it was an utter impossibility to check the heavy train before the victim would be overtaken and crushed to death, and with fixed eyes he awaited the catastrophe. The lady heard the warning whistle, and turning her head saw the iron monster almost upon her. Escape seemed impossible; to remain was certain death, to jump to the ground beneath, a distance of thirty or forty feet, equally certain death, and to attempt to run ahead and escape, was out of the question. Unlike ten thousand ladies, out of ten thousand and one, she did not scream or faint or indulge in any nonsense of any kind,, but, realizing the situation in an instant, and taking the chances all in, she proceeded to an action, which saved her life in a manner that would have been an honor to the coolness and presence of mind 6t an old campaigner or a life-long frontiersman. About thirty inenes below the ends of the ties, and immediately under the stringer which supports them, there is a joist five inches wide running from one support of tho trestle to another, and to this the clearheaded girl resorted for safety. Stepping to the end of the ties she swung herself down to the narrow thread with all the apparent ease of a'gymnast, and with her arms clasped around it, stretched herself at full length along it as the train thundered by almost over her: Assoonasthe engineer saw her action he threw off hia brakes and put on steam, hurried past as soon as possible, when she nimbly sprang to the track again and pursued her journey as though nothing haa happened. But every woman who had a husband or sweetheart on that train has cause to be jealous of that brave young lady.— Tito* vUle (Pa.) Herald.

—The members of the present Senior class of Dartmouth College have given fBOO worth of books to the society libraries. —Mrs. Scott-Biddons, having recovered from her recent illness, has begun her season of dramatic readings, { ' '>i ■ - . —James Russell Lowell has settled down in the Latin Quarter, Fans, where he intends to spend the coming winter. <■» —A box of books was recently received at the Kansas Blind Asylum—a gift of tq« late Charles Dickens,