You probably have by this time heard and read accounts of the opening of the railroad, and the fearful accident which occurred at it, for the papers are full of nothing else.  The accident you mention did occur, but though the unfortunate man who was killed bore Mr. Stephenson’s name, he was not related to him.  I will tell you something of the events on the 15th, as, though you may be acquainted with the circumstances of poor Mr. Huskisson’s death, none but an eyewitness of the whole scene can form a conception of it.  I told you that we had had places given to us, and it was the main purpose of our returning from Birmingham to Manchester to be present at what promised to be one of the most striking events in the scientific annals of our country.  We started on Wednesday last, to the number of about eight hundred people, in carriages constructed as I before described to you.  The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and, though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them.  What with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so much as the first hour of our progress.  I had been unluckily separated from my mother in the first distribution of places, but by an exchange of seats which she was enabled to make she rejoined me when I was at the height of my ecstasy, which was considerably damped by finding that she was frightened to death, and intent upon nothing but devising means of escaping from a situation which appeared to her to threaten with instant annihilation herself and all her traveling companions.  While I was chewing the cud of this disappointment, which was rather bitter, as I had expected her to be as delighted as myself with our excursion, a man flew by us, calling out through a speaking-trumpet to stop the engine, for that somebody in the directors’ carriage had sustained an injury.  We were all stopped accordingly, and presently a hundred voices were heard exclaiming that Mr. Huskisson was killed; the confusion that ensued is indescribable:  the calling out from carriage to carriage to ascertain the truth, the contrary reports which were sent back to us, the hundred questions eagerly uttered at once, and the repeated and urgent demands for surgical assistance, created a sudden turmoil that was quite sickening.  At last we distinctly ascertained that the unfortunate man’s thigh was broken.  From Lady W——­, who was in the duke’s carriage, and within three yards of the spot where the accident happened, I had the following details, the horror of witnessing which we were spared through our situation behind the great carriage.  The engine had stopped to take in a supply of water, and several of the gentlemen in the directors’ carriage had jumped out to look about them.  Lord W——­,