appearance of having been drinking, but was quiet. I sat with my back to the engine, on the getting-out side of the carriage; prisoner was sitting on the opposite side, with his right arm to the window, and the other person was sitting on the same side as prisoner, about the middle of the seat. I was engaged reading, and did not exchange words with the prisoner.

"After we had passed over Runcorn bridge and through the station, I perceived the prisoner make a start, and looking toward him saw a white-hafted knife in his hand, about five inches long, with the blade open. He held it in his right hand in a menacing manner. Drawing his left hand along the edge of the blade, he said, "This will have to go into some ——." At that moment he looked at me across the carriage; he was on his feet in an instant, and looking across to me, he said, "You ——, this will have to go into you," and made a bound toward me. The other jumped up and tried to prevent him. The prisoner threw him away; he made a plunge at my throat. I caught his wrist just as he advanced, and struggled with him, still holding fast to his wrist with both hands. We fell over and under one another two or three times, and eventually he overpowered me. I had fallen on my side on the seat, but still retained my hold upon his wrist. While lying in that position he held the knife down to within an inch of my throat. I called to the other man to hold the prisoner's hand back which contained the knife, and by that means he saved my life. I was growing powerless, and as the other man restrained the prisoner from using the knife, I jerked myself from his grasp, and knocked the knife out of the prisoner's hand with my left hand.

"The prisoner eluded the grip of his father, and falling on his knees began to seek for his knife. Failing to find the knife, he was instantly on his feet, and made a spring upon me. If I recollect aright, he threw his arms around my neck, and in this manner we struggled together up and down the carriage for some minutes, during which time he got my left thumb (with a glove on at the time) in his mouth, and bit it. Still retaining my thumb in his mouth, the other man struck him under the chin, when he released it, and fell on his knees seeking the knife, which he did not find. He was immediately on his feet, and again made a spring upon me. We had then a very long and desperate struggle, when he overpowered me and pinned me in a corner of the compartment. At last he got my right thumb into his mouth, holding my hand to steady it with both his hands while he bit it. With a great effort he then bit my thumb off, clean to the bone. I had no glove on that hand. I called to the other man to help me, but he seemed stupefied. He called two or three times to the prisoner, 'Leave the poor man alone. The poor man has done thee no harm.' Though sitting within nine inches of my knees he rendered me no help.

"When the prisoner bit my thumb off, he held it in his mouth; he pushed his head through the glass, spat the thumb into his hand and flung it out through the window. I then stood up and put my left hand in my pocket, took out my purse and cried out: 'If it is money you want take all I have.' He made a grab at the purse and flung it through the window, on the same side as the thumb was thrown out. From this act I inferred that I was struggling with a maniac. I retreated to the other end of the compartment, holding the other man between me and the prisoner, but he passed the other man by jumping over the seat and again got hold of me. Then he forced his head through the other window, breaking the glass, and, loosing me for a moment, with his fists smashed the remaining glass in the window. Addressing me he said: 'You ——, you will have to go over;' at the same time he flung both his arms around my waist. I put my leg behind his and threw him on his back. I called upon the other man to help me and he did so.

"We held him down for some time, but he overpowered us and flung us back some distance. He then laid hold of my travelling rug and threw it through the window. Laying his hand on the bottom of the window he cried out, 'Here goes,' and made a leap through the window. I and the other man instantly laid hold of his legs as he was falling over. I got my four fingers into his right shoe, and, his father assisting me, we held him through the window, hanging head downward for about half a mile. I then fainted, and as I was losing my hold on his heels I have some faint recollection that the prisoner's father lost his hold at the same time, and I can't say what happened afterward. As I was coming to myself the train was stopping, and I heard the other man say, 'Oh, my son, my son.' When the train stopped I walked from the carriage to the station, and Dr. Robinson, who was sent for, came in about an hour and amputated my thumb further back."

While thus referring, however, to this instance of British railroad conservatism, which with a stolid indifference seems to ignore the teachings of every day life and to meet constantly recurring experience with a calm defiance, it will not do for the American railroad manager to pride himself too much on his own greater ingenuity and more amenable disposition. The Angola disaster has been referred to, as well as that at Shipton. If the absence of the bell-cord had indeed any part in the fatality of the latter, the presence in cars crowded with passengers of iron pots full of living fire lent horrors before almost unheard of to the former. The methods of accomplishing needed results which are usual to any people are never easily changed, whether in Europe or in America; but certainly the disasters which have first and last ensued from the failure to devise any safe means of heating passenger coaches in this country are out of all proportion to those which can be attributed in England to the absence of means of communication between the passengers on trains and those in charge of them. There is an American conservatism as well as an English; and when it comes to a question of running risks it would be strange indeed if the greater margin of security were found west of the Atlantic. The security afforded by the bell-cord assuredly has not as yet in this country off-set the danger incident to red-hot stoves.