With Thanksgiving and Christmas in mind we consider the importance of turkeys and what they have meant to Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dickens.

1. TALKING TURKEY - En passant, a recall of the occasion when a train
accident in 1869 cooked Charles Dickens's last Christmas turkey
The thought of an eagle may transport our minds to the glories of ancient Rome
and the thought of a turtle dove may inspire us with notions of lifelong love and
fidelity but what about that odd-looking fall guy in the avian domain, the turkey?
Only the other day I was reminded of this remarkable bird by a press report that
President Biden had 'pardoned' a turkey in line with 'a tradition now associated
with the celebration of Thanksgiving Day in the United States. As traditions go,
this one has a short history, the only clear-cut precedent having been established
by President George H.W. Bush in 1989. More tenuous claims to starting the
tradition go back to the days of John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman and even
Abraham Lincoln though in the latter case the association of reprieving a turkey's
life had to do with the Christmas season when, as the story goes, Lincoln's son
Tad , moved by childish affection for a pet animal named Jack, persuaded his
father to spare the life of a turkey on death row.
The tradition of eating a Turkey at Christmas is attested by an event in the life of
Charles Dickens. The occasion in question happed on the last Christmas the
author ever celebrated in his life. In 1869 he received notice from a railway office
that the turkey destined to find a place on his dinner table had been burned alive
in a rail accident sustained on its way to Dickens's address. When the bird's
remains eventually reached the author's home, he took the matter in good part as
shown by the humorous tone of a letter he sent to the railway company
concerned in the aftermath of his turkey's sad demise. Otherwise, the part played
by railway accidents in Dickens's life was far from felicitous.
Dickens died on June the ninth in 1870 and, as Fate would have it, it was on June
the ninth in 1865 that Dickens almost came to grief at Stapleton in Kent when he
and his young female companion were on a train journey from Dover to London.

2. Their carriage plunged from an elevated section of the track from which it
dangled precariously toward the ground below. Not only did Dickens survive the
accident but acted heroically to assist injured fellow travelers. However, the shock
he now suffered instilled in his mind a profound trauma combined with a distrust
in rail transport that persisted throughout the rest of his life. Indeed, as we can
gather from a passage in Our Mutual Friend, the last novel he was ever to
complete, the train became a symbol of heartless progress and the relentless.
workings of inexorable Fate. Furthermore, one of his last Christmas short stories,
'The Signal-Man,' carries a lugubrious and spooky message concerning the role of
inexplicable coincidences in history and human affairs, revealed not least by
railway accidents. Of course, we more readily associate the positive in life with
Dickens's first Christmas ghost story, ‘A Christmas Carol' but even here we are
reminded of a weird connection between enjoying a meaty dish and omens of
death by Scrooge's bid to explain away the appearance of Marley's ghost as the
product of 'gravy', not the grave.
References:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=Dickens+the+signal-
man&&mid=4597232FFB6A2D29DEB14597232FFB6A2D29DEB1&&FORM=VRDGAR