Rear-end collisions have been less frequent in this country than in England, for the simple reason that the volume of traffic has pressed less heavily on the capacity of the lines. Yet here, also, they have been by no means unknown. In 1865 two occurred, both of which were accompanied with a considerable loss of life; though, coming as they did during the exciting scenes which marked the close of the war of the Rebellion, they attracted much less public notice than they otherwise would. The first of these took place in New Jersey on the 7th of March, 1865, just three days after the second inauguration of President Lincoln. As the express train from Washington to New York over the Camden & Amboy road was passing through Bristol, about thirty miles from Philadelphia, at half-past-two o'clock in the morning, it dashed into the rear of the twelve o'clock "owl train," from Kensington to New York, which had been delayed by meeting an oil train on the track before it. The case appears to have been one of very culpable negligence, for, though the owl train was some two hours late, those in charge of it seem to have been so deeply engrossed in what was going on before them that they wholly neglected to guard their rear. The express train accordingly, approaching around a curve, plunged at a high rate of speed into the last car, shattering it to pieces; the engine is even said to have passed completely through that car and to have imbedded itself in the one before it. It so happened that most of the sufferers by this accident, numbering about fifty, were soldiers on their way home from the army upon furlough. The second of the two disasters referred to, occurred on the 16th of August, 1865, upon the Housatonic road of Connecticut. A new engine was out upon an experimental trip, and in rounding a curve it ran into the rear of a passenger train, which, having encountered a disabled freight train, had coupled on to it and was then backing down with it to a siding in order to get by. In this case the impetus was so great that the colliding locomotive utterly destroyed the rear car of the passenger train and penetrated some distance into the car preceding it, where its boiler burst. Fortunately the train was by no means full of passengers; but, even as it was, eleven persons were killed and some seventeen badly injured. CHAPTER XVI. NOVEL APPLIANCES.