According to the London newspapers, there was lately an amusing experiment to test the flight of carrier-pigeons against the speed of a railway train. The following is the account given of this curious race, which took place on the 13th July: 'The race was from Dover to London between the continental mail express train and a carrier-pigeon conveying a document of an urgent nature from the French police. The pigeon, which was bred by Messrs Hartley and Sons of Woolwich, and "homed" when a few weeks old to a building in Cannon Street, City, was of the best breed of homing pigeons, known as "Belgian voyageurs." The bird was tossed through the railway carriage window by a French official as the train moved from the Admiralty Pier, the wind being west and the atmosphere hazy, but with the sun shining. For upwards of a minute the carrier-pigeon circled round to an altitude of about half a mile, and then sailed away towards London. By this time the train, which carried the European mails, and was timed not to stop between Dover and Cannon Street, had got up to full speed, and was proceeding at the rate of sixty miles an hour towards London. The odds at starting seemed against the bird; and the railway officials predicted that the little messenger would be beaten in the race. The pigeon, however, as soon as it ascertained its bearings, took the nearest homeward route in a direction midway between Maidstone and Sittingbourne, the distance "as the crow flies" between Dover and London being seventy miles, and by rail seventy-six and a half miles. When the continental mail express came into Cannon Street station, the bird had been home twenty minutes; having beaten Her Majesty's royal mail by a time allowance representing eighteen miles.'
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