Train accident on the bridge over the Mississippi River. The engine and baggage car jumped the track. The three entertainers walked across the bridge, took a car to the Southern Hotel, and that night were welcomed by a large audience (pg 37 Cardwell)
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch January 9, 1885, Pg2
A SENSATIONAL ACCIDENT. A Faulty Flange Causes a Train to Jump the Bridge Track. ‘The passengers on the in-bound Chicago and Alton train this morning at 10 o’clock were treated to a sensation on the eastern approach of the bridge, which they will remember for many days. The train, consisting of a baggage car, chair car, smoking car and sleeper, was proceeding up the approach at the rate of six miles an hour when the cross-over switch east of the east abutment was run over. The engine, baggage and smoking car crossed the switch in safety, but the chair car struck the frog and jumped the track, lodging at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees across the track and switch. The passengers in the chair car jumped to their feet and were soon crowding each other on to the platform of the car, compelling others to step down to the floor of the approach. The train was brought to such a sudden halt that the passengers in the other cars of the train became almost panic-stricken. As soon as quiet could be restored the entrance to the east abutment tower was opened and the passengers sent up to foot it over the bridge or wait until the chair car was jacked back on the track, which operation consumed over a half hour. On examining the switch it was found that it was securely closed, and the fact that the engine and two cars passed over the switch frog in safety left but one explanation, and that is that a flange on one of the wheels of the chair car must have been broken and caught on the frog. A thorough investigation of the accident is being made.
James Lampton, the original for Colonel Sellers, dropped in for free tickets for the show.
"This literary conspiracy," as Mark Twain describes the entertainment given by Mr. George W. Cable and himself, is really a very novel and agreeable affair. The idea of an author reading selections from his own works is not a new one, to be sure; Dickens introduced it many year ago, with pronounced success, and others have since adopted it from time to time, with results of various kinds. But this is the first case, we believe, in which two authors have "joined teams" for reading purposes; and certainly no two more widely-read and popular current writers, and yet two writers more distinctly unlike in their literary methods and their personal characteristics, could easily be brought together as a platform attraction. One is blunt, audacious and strongly individualized; the other is delicate, decorous, and not at all self-assertive except in the sense of aiming to do well what is put before him. They appeal to an audience in ways entirely different, just as they are known to write from entirely different points of view; and not the least interesting feature of the entertainment is the chance it affords for noting the shifting and denoting manner in which their recitations--for they recite almost all their "readings"--are received in turn by their hearers. One compels outright laugher, while the other seldom achieves more than smiles and a light murmur of gratification. Those who applaud the one do not always applaud the other; and yet it is hard to tell at the end which has seemed to make the surer impression, so much depends upon the fact that they must be judged together to be judged definitely." St. Louis Daily Globe Democrat 1885: January 11
See Touring with Cable and Huck for reviews and a publicity article describing their arrival in St. Louis, and the trouble on the new bridge across the Mississippi that almost kept them from getting there
Saturday, January 10, 1885:
In the evening, Sam and Cable gave a second performance in Mercantile Library Hall , St. Louis. The Post Dispatch, and the Daily Globe-Democrat gave the pair positive reviews [Railton]. Cardwell says the crowd was not good, and according to Ozias Pond, Saturday night was “not popular in St. Louis ‘with the better element’.” [Cardwell 37].
Railroads: Alton and East St. Louis, Terre Haute, Alton and Chicago, St. Louis, Alton and Chicago