§ MR. THEODORE FRYasked the President of the Board of Trade, If his attention has been called to a statement of the great danger in which the Irish Mail was placed between Chester and Holyhead on Tuesday the 26th, owing to the engine driver and stoker on another engine being asleep and unable to 771 obey the signals; and, if it is a fact that these men had been on duty for 15 hours, and, notwithstanding this great strain, they had been discharged by the Company?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINSir, I have communicated with the London and North-Western Railway Company, and am informed that the engine driver and fireman had worked a special goods train from Chester to Carnarvon, and that, there being no load for them to take back, they were authorized to return to Chester with their engine alone; but, in order to obtain this authority, the men, in their anxiety to got home to Chester, wilfully made a misstatement to the effect that they had commenced work at 12.45, instead of 8 o'clock, that morning. I am informed that for this falsehood they have both been dismissed. The signalman at Llandudno Junction exercised great presence of mind when the engine ran through that station in telegraphing to the signalman at Colwyn Bay, as the Colwyn Bay staff was thus enabled to take measures for protecting the line.