Accidents

At this time of the year cycle accidents at the corner where Doncaster Road and Sheffield Road join the Low Road, are of common occurrence, but fortunately the victims generally get off with little more than a severe shaking.

On Thursday of last week a young lady had a rather unpleasant “stop” there, but was not seriously hurt.

This corner was the scene of a much more serious accident on Friday morning, which might easily have resulted in a fatality. A little after 10 o’clock a traction engine belonging to Mr Whitefield was taking two trucks of stone round the corner. Finding this was too much, metal “blocks” were put under the wheels of the hindmost truck, which was then uncoupled.

The wagon was standing on the incline at the time and it appeared that the blocks were not large enough to hold it in this position, for escaping from them it ran backwards down the incline, across the road, and dashed with terrific force into the window of the butcher shop belonging to Mr A Walter, smashing the plate glass window into thousands of pieces, and seriously damaging the brickwork round it.

At the time of the accident Mr Walters sister-in-law, Mrs M Horning, who was in charge of the shop, was standing in the window bottom cleaning the brass rails which are used for hanging meat on, and so had her back to the window. The first intimation she received was when the wagon struck, and she found herself immediately in a veritable shower of plate glass. Marvellous to relate, she was not seriously hurt, receiving sundry painful cuts, which fortunately were not serious. The force of the impact may be realised from the fact that class was thrown all over the shop, even to the far side, and the counter was so damaged that the drawers could not be opened. This makes Miss Hornings escape the more remarkable.