Chapter 550 of the Acts of 1907, provides that the

building commissioner, or one of his inspectors, shall inspect every building which he has reason to believe is unsafe or dangerous to life, limb or adjoining buildings, and, if he finds it unsafe or dangerous, shall notify the owner to secure the building, and shall affix in a conspicuous place on its walls a notice of its dangerous condition. “The commissioner may, with the written approval of the mayor, order any building which in his opinion is unsafe to be vacated forthwith,” in the words of the law.

Fifty buildings have already been condemned this year. Many of them have been removed, but in every case the owners have consented to the removal. The building commissioner sends his lists of condemned buildings to the City Council, which gives hearings on the appeal. There is a long list of such buildings now pending before the council, and the mayor will go before that body at its next meeting and urge that the list be given immediate attention.

The law department has handled two hundred egress cases for the building department in the last two years, Assistant Corporation Counsel Edward T. McGettrick having full charge, and in not a single case has the department been obliged to vacate after the bill in equity has been filed in court. Most of these cases, however, are of lodging-houses, the owners preferring to obey orders in providing sufficient fire-escapes rather than fight the case in the courts.

* * * * *

SMALL FIRE

_Savannah News_

A tiny, golden-throated canary bird was the hero of a midnight fire in the lobby of the Geiger Hotel on Broughton street last night.

It was due to the bird that the attachés of the hotel investigated and found a blaze in the wall caused by a defective flue in the rear of the cigar stand cases. The loss will amount to between $500 and $600. The bird hangs in a cage near the cigar stand. About 11:30 o’clock S. D. MacMartin noticed it suddenly wake from its sleep and flutter noisily about the cage. He thought a cat was attempting to get the bird and made an investigation. He climbed on a chair and a puff of smoke and a blaze shot towards him.

A telephone alarm was sent immediately to fire headquarters, and Chemical Company No. 1 answered. They extinguished the blaze in a short time. It was necessary to chop away the partition, and the cigar stand and cases were moved into the lobby of the hotel from the wall. The owner of the stand stated that his loss would be considerable.

With all the excitement in the lobby none of the guests in the hotel was awakened.

* * * * *

LIVES LOST IN FIRE

_Chicago Tribune_

A careless electrician, a gas pocket in a fireproof vault, a stab of flame from a blown-out fuse--and a deadly “sane Fourth” argument for a city which has ceased to need one.

Such, in brief, was the story read by Coroner Hoffman and other official investigators yesterday in the ruins of the Pain Fireworks Display company’s plant at 1320 Wabash avenue, after an explosion of the $5,000 stock of cannon crackers, torpedoes, roman candles, skyrockets, and pyrotechnical set pieces had wrecked the firm’s own building and rocked adjoining structures.

The electrician, upon whom the authorities are inclined to put the blame, was Joseph Johnson, employed in the fire sprinkler department of the American District Telegraph company.

Johnson was one of five persons trapped in the building and killed. Late in the afternoon the bodies of the other four victims--H. B. Thearle, president of the company; Miss Florence Hill, his personal secretary; Edward Connors, a salesman; and R. H. Wolff, the stockman--had been recovered, but Johnson’s was not found until night.

The explosion--or rather the explosions, for there were three or four of them at half second intervals--occurred shortly before 11 o’clock in the morning. Mr. Thearle was sitting at his desk in the middle of the building, a deep, narrow, one story structure of concrete and steel. At his side was Miss Hill, taking dictation in shorthand. Connors was busy at an adjoining desk.

Wolff, the stockkeeper, was in the rear part of the basement, in which most of the company’s stock was stored. At the front end of the basement two electricians were at work--Johnson and Michael J. Callahan, his foreman. The job on which the electricians were employed centered in the Coca Cola building, adjoining the Pain plant, in which an outfit of automatic sprinklers was being installed.

Duty called Callahan into the Coca Cola building just in time to save his life. A minute after the foreman electrician had walked out the front door, Thomas Byrnes, sales manager for the fireworks company, stepped into the alley at the rear of the building. He had taken only a few steps when there was a flash and a roar and his feet shot from under him.

As Byrnes fell, a body came sailing out into the alley. It stopped short against one of the pillars of the south side “L” structure, which runs through the alley, and Johnny Costello, the Pain office boy, let out a yell of terror. The yell was his last for several hours, for he immediately lost consciousness.

At the Wabash avenue end of the building other things were happening. With the first explosion the big plate glass window disappeared and a mountain of flame burst into the street. The street car tracks were clear for a hundred yards north and south, except for which fact, it is believed, there would have been many more killed and injured.

The flame rolled across the street and scorched the front of the building of the Howe Scale company, all the windows of which had been shaken out by the explosion. On the heels of the dissipated flame mountain a pillar of smoke several hundred feet in height rolled out of the Pain building.

Columns of flame and smoke climbed through holes in the fireworks store which marked the places where two big skylights had been, and an instant later a dozen shutters on the north wall of the Coca Cola building were afire, and panic-stricken employés, many of them girls, were racing for the south fire escapes.

Firemen responding to a 4-11 alarm found the bodies of Mr. Thearle, Miss Hill, and Connors just inside the front door, all badly burned. Hours later the body of Wolff was found in the rear of the basement. It was after nightfall when firemen, working in the glare of a searchlight, took Johnson’s body from the ruins.

By that time the building had been carefully inspected--and it was regarded as a tribute to the strength of its reinforced concrete construction that there was any of it left to inspect--by Coroner Hoffman, J. C. O’Donnell, chief of the bureau of fire prevention and public safety, and investigators for the new municipal department of public service. All were of the opinion that Johnson was responsible for the explosion, but the blame will not be definitely placed until Monday, when a jury impaneled on the spot by Coroner Hoffman will hold an inquest.

O’Donnell, who is third assistant fire marshal, planned to combine his investigation with the coroner’s. He was satisfied, he said, that the Pain company had taken all reasonable precautions and that favorable reports made on the place by inspectors of his bureau had been justified by conditions.

The building had been specially constructed for the storage of fireworks, and had been occupied by the company, formerly located in the loop, for three years. The basement had been divided into three sections by stout partitions, in much the same way that bulkheads are built into a ship. Into each of the partitions was set a steel door. But there had been no time to close the doors.

“The Pain people thought they were absolutely protected against accidents,” said O’Donnell. “This goes to prove there is no such thing as absolute protection when explosives are being handled.”

* * * * *

LODGING HOUSE FIRE

_New York World_

The lives of six persons who died in a lodging house fire at No. 1516 Eighth avenue early yesterday morning, might have been saved if orders issued by the Fire Department last May 27 had been obeyed, says a report which J. O. Hammitt, Chief of the Bureau of Fire Prevention, made late yesterday to Commissioner Robert Adamson.

Five of the dead persons were identified as Bernard Lynde, thirty-five, a laborer; Edward J. Ryan, thirty-five, a lunchman; Louis Detter, fifty-three, a laborer; a man named Hagan, about fifty; and John Cutter, eighty-four, a laborer. The sixth man was unidentified.

There were sixty-five men registered in the hotel when Peter Kelly, a watchman, saw the smoke and gave an alarm. Sergt. John Butler of the Salvage Corps ran to the roof of a neighboring building and assisted fifteen of the men to safety.

Lieut. Reed of Hook and Ladder No. 12, and Hugh Bonner, the son of the ex-Chief, mounted extension ladders to the top floor and assisted many more to the ground. Three bodies were found on the third, and three on the top floor.

Coroner Healy and Fire Marshal Prial believed that the fire was caused by a careless smoker.

Following the issuance of the report, it was announced that an investigation would be made by the District-Attorney’s office to determine whether anyone could be held responsible for the loss of life.

The orders were for the enclosure of an unenclosed stairway, up which the fire spread, and for the installation of an interior fire alarm system. Both orders had been turned over to the legal department for enforcement, and work on the stairway enclosure was in progress the day before the fire. Plans for the fire alarm system were approved Oct. 22.

Mr. Hammitt stated that the day before the fire an inspector learned that the direct communication of the lodging house with fire headquarters had been cut and ordered its restoration. The report says that Peter Loos, the proprietor, called at fire headquarters at 9 o’clock and said that the communication had not been re-established because it was the work of the landlord, but that there had been a fire in which “three persons were slightly injured.” According to Mr. Hammitt, Edward Brown is the owner of the building.

* * * * *

CAUSE OF FIRE

_New York Times_

A glowing match, carelessly tossed into a baby carriage standing in the hall, is believed to have started the fire in which thirteen persons lost their lives in the three-story tenement house in the rear of 986 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, as told in THE TIMES yesterday. Poor lighting in the hallways may have been an indirect cause of the fire, according to Tenement House Commissioner John J. Murphy.

As in more than 2,000 structures in the city, Commissioner Murphy said, kerosene lamps were used to light the halls. Often the lights go out or are turned out by 11 o’clock, so that persons who go into the buildings later are forced to strike matches to find their way. It probably was a match struck in this way that started the fire.

After an inspection of the district about ten days ago all the property owners were warned that they must keep their lights lighted, according to the law. The inspection disclosed that about 70 per cent. of the houses were poorly lighted.

“Prosecutions for violations of the law relating to lighting are almost without exception in vain,” Commissioner Murphy told a TIMES reporter yesterday, “If the owners are taken to court, they say that the lights went out, or were blown out. The reason for the law is primarily to see that the means of exit are lighted. The danger from matches used to light the way had not been thought so great.”

Except with regard to lighting, possibly, the burned tenement complied with all the provisions of the law, the officials said. The fire escapes were as prescribed, and it was due to excitement on the part of the occupants that they did not use them instead of trying to go down the stairs. Only one of the windows opening to fire escapes was found broken.

All of the victims were suffocated by smoke. Five were members of the family of Michael Blund, and two others were boarders with him; three were members of the family of Michael Lenko, all of whom lived on the top floor. John Whatso and his wife and an unidentified man who boarded with them were found on the second floor.

The house was occupied by six families, two on each floor. It is owned by John Korno, a banker, of 667 Grand Street, who owns several other tenement houses in the neighborhood. As told in late editions of yesterday’s TIMES, flames were seen shooting out of the windows by a passerby, who turned in an alarm. The firemen, when they arrived, found it difficult work, so excited was the crowd in front of the burning building.

The interior of the building was scarcely touched by fire. Several of the bodies were lightly scorched, but it was apparent that suffocation had caused the deaths. On one of the floors the tenants had opened the door and left it open creating a draft. Apparently all of the victims had been asleep when the fire started.

Commissioner Adamson, Fire Chief Kenlon, Fire Marshal Brophy, Deputy Tenement House Commissioner Hickey, Assistant District Attorney Wilson, Captain Shaw of the Homicide Squad of the Police Department and Coroner Wagner made investigations. At first it was thought that the fire was of incendiary origin, and the theory was that it had been started by one of Korno’s tenants who had been evicted. The officials were hampered in their investigation because most of the tenants were foreigners and could not speak English.

* * * * *

RUNAWAY

_New York Evening Post_

Dragged from his own horse while trying to stop a runaway in Central Park this afternoon, Mounted Patrolman Stephen Dowling, although thrown under the wheels of a light carriage, jumped to his feet, remounted his horse, and, after a chase of ten blocks, caught and stopped the other animal. His uniform was torn and he received contusions about the body, but he remained on duty throughout the day. The runaway horse was attached to a light runabout, driven by a man and woman, who said they were Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Hamilton of No. 775 West Ninety-fifth Street.

They were driving slowly on the West Drive when, at Ninetieth Street, the bit broke and the animal bolted. Dowling saw the runaway and pursued it on his own horse, which overtook the fleeing animal at One Hundred and Sixth Street.

Because of the broken bit it was impossible to stop the running horse by catching the bridle, so Dowling leaned far out and wrapped his arms around the neck of the runaway. He clung in this manner for a few minutes, and then, his own horse shying, he was dragged from the saddle and fell directly beneath the wheels of the runabout. Two wheels passed over his chest.

Although dazed and bruised, Dowling jumped to his feet and caught his horse, which stood near, mounted and set off at a gallop after the Hamilton rig.

At One Hundred and Sixteenth Street the runaway swerved and the light carriage was thrown against a truck. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were thrown out but escaped with a few slight bruises. Dowling had almost caught up when this occurred. He halted long enough to see that the man and woman were not injured and then started after the running horse. Near One Hundred and Seventeenth Street he was even with the animal and again leaned over and wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck. This time his own horse did its share of the work, and Dowling’s weight soon told on the runaway, which stopped within half a block.

“Just in the day’s work,” said Dowling, when he was congratulated.

* * * * *

AUTOMOBILE COLLISION

_Boston Herald_

Tossed into a blazing pool of gasoline when two touring cars collided and the gas tank of one exploded, Miss Alice Cushing, 22, of Nahant, and Percy Mason of 765 Washington street, Lynn, were probably fatally burned at 8 o’clock last night on the Nahant road at Little Nahant.

Walter Hanley of 11 Moore street, Swampscott, was hurled 30 feet with his clothing a mass of flames, but saved his own life by plunging into the surf and extinguishing the fire about him. Ten other passengers in the machines were bruised and shaken up, but were able to return home after medical attention.

The accident happened opposite Wilson road, when a seven passenger touring car in which were Mr. and Mrs. J. Fred Farley of Danvers, their three children, Richard, Fred and Helen Farley, and Mrs. Farley’s mother, Mrs. O. B. Merton of Danvers, turned abruptly to one side to go down upon the beach. It was struck from behind by a public touring car operated by Hanley and containing six passengers.

Hanley’s machine ploughed into the rear of the Farley car, tearing a hole in the gasoline tank. The lamps ignited the gasoline and an explosion followed which sent several gallons of burning fluid upon the road.

It was into this that Miss Cushing and Mason fell when they were thrown from the public machine by the impact. The young woman was made unconscious by the fall and was lying helpless in the centre of the fire when she was rescued with considerable difficulty by H. C. Wilcox of Beverly, who was driving by on the road. He rolled her in an automobile robe and, after extinguishing the flames, took her to the Lynn Hospital. There it was said there was practically no chance of her recovery. She was burned from head to foot and had inhaled much of the flames.

Mason was rescued by Dr. Newton A. Stone of Somerville, a Cambridge dentist, who heard the explosion and saw the glare of flames while driving in his machine farther down the road. He put out the fire about Mason with auto robes, assisted by the passengers of the public machine who had recovered from their shock. The dentist worked over him while another man drove his machine to Union Hospital, Lynn. Mason’s burns were so severe that his name was immediately placed on the danger list.

In the excitement which followed the wreck, it was believed that Hanley, the driver of the public car, had been burned alive. A half-hour later, however, he was discovered in a cottage off Wilson road. His clothing was ignited by the explosion, and he was hurled over the road upon the sand, his clothes a mass of flames.

He had to run toward the surf, but was seriously burned before he could reach the water, some 50 yards away. After he had extinguished the flames himself, he made his way to a cottage and sank exhausted on the piazza. Later he was removed to Lynn Hospital, where it was stated his burns were serious, but probably would not prove fatal. He was burned about the face and upper part of the body and the flames had entered his mouth, burning his tongue and throat.

Before the Nahant fire department could reach the scene both automobiles were destroyed. The Farley machine had been badly wrecked by the collision and the public car was telescoped. In the latter machine were Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hanley of Lynn, Arthur Wright of Fiske avenue, Lynn, and Leo Sale of Lynn, besides those who were burned. They were all more or less bruised.

The Farley party narrowly escaped being burned and were cut and bruised when they were thrown from their seats. Mrs. Farley told the police that she held up her hand to signal the other machine as her husband turned his auto toward the beach. Hanley was in no condition to discuss the accident. He is said to have been driving at about 18 miles an hour.

Miss Cushing lived on Willow road, Nahant, and was employed as a waitress in the Colonial Café, Nahant. Mason roomed at 765 Washington street, Lynn, and for many years was a resident of Peabody. He was employed in a Nahant restaurant.

Mr. Farley is a machine manufacturer in Danvers.

* * * * *

AUTOMOBILE AND CAR COLLIDE

_New York Tribune_

George C. Hurlbut, the aged librarian of the American Geological Society, and his daughter, Miss Ilione Hurlbut, were seriously injured last night in a collision between the automobile in which they were riding and a surface car in the 86th street transverse road in Central Park. Father and daughter were removed to the Presbyterian Hospital, where it was said that the skull of each was fractured. Miss Hurlbut’s right arm was broken. Both were unconscious when they were received at the hospital, and it was said they could not recover.

Mr. Hurlbut lives at No. 560 West End avenue and is seventy years old. His daughter, Ilione, is thirty-five years old and is his assistant in his work. Yesterday afternoon they engaged William Agg, of 86th street and Broadway, to take them for a drive in the Fifth avenue section, saying they would afterward have him drop them at No. 106 West 55th street, where they intended to have their Christmas dinner with William Hurlbut, a nephew of Mr. Hurlbut.

Agg started toward Fifth avenue by way of the transverse road. Less than half of the distance to Fifth avenue had been covered when he heard a westbound car approaching. The automobile was at that moment opposite the Park Department workshops. Agg attempted to turn out, but the slippery road and rails caused the rear wheels of the automobile to skid. Both the car and the automobile were travelling at a rapid rate, and the front of the car struck the body of the machine, overturning it. Before the motorman could bring his car to a stop the automobile had been crumpled up like cardboard, and the aged librarian and his daughter lay unconscious among the wreckage. Agg had saved himself by jumping before the car struck the machine.

The car was crowded, and there was intense excitement among the passengers, who were shaken up and struck by flying glass. Policeman Talt heard the noise made by the collision and immediately telephoned for an ambulance. Before it arrived, however, a passing automobile was pressed into service, and the injured man and woman were placed in it and hurried to the Presbyterian Hospital.

Lieutenant Arnett, of the Arsenal station, ordered the arrest of the motorman of the car, James Gannon, of No. 419 Third avenue, and Agg, who lives at No. 160 Manhattan avenue.

Mr. Hurlbut has been the librarian of the American Geological Society, at No. 15 West 81st street, for twenty-five years, and is considered the foremost authority on that class of work in this country. He was born at Charleston, S. C., about seventy years ago, and before he came here was engaged in geological study and writing in San Francisco and was president of the Mercantile Library.

The library of the American Geological Society consists of 40,000 volumes, and is second only in completeness to the geological library at Paris. Mr. Hurlbut is also editor of the monthly bulletin which the society publishes. George Greenough, the secretary of the society, was greatly shocked by the news of the accident to Mr. Hurlbut and his daughter. He said last night that the loss of the librarian’s services, even for a short time, would be an irreparable loss to science and to the society.

Since the death of his wife, eight years ago, Mr. Hurlbut has lived with his daughter, Ilione. They occupied a suite in the building at No. 560 West End avenue, and Miss Hurlbut acted as her father’s assistant.

He has two nephews, William J. Hurlbut, author of the play “The Fighting Hope,” now at the Stuyvesant Theatre, and Stephen A. Hurlbut, professor of Greek at Barnard College. Mr. Hurlbut’s brother is said to have been the owner and editor of “The New York World” before it became the property of Mr. Pulitzer.

* * * * *

CHILD IN RUNAWAY

_Boston Advertiser_

NEW YORK, Dec. 23--Walter Jackson is a lucky baby. His parents admit that he is something more than that, but take it as things go in this world of chance, he’s lucky.

A horse attached to a delivery wagon was standing in front of 942 Columbus ave. One of the front wheels was tied to a rear wheel. Jacob Katz, the driver, was in the building.

Along came a fat boy with a Christmas tree on his shoulder and longings in his heart. He stopped to look into a shop window and swung the tree around sweeping the face of the horse. The horse ran away.

When he got to the corner of 87th st. the horse took to the sidewalk.

On the sidewalk, along with many other shoppers, were Walter Jackson and his wife. Just ahead of them was Miss Rose Williams, and just ahead of Miss Williams was a baby carriage, and in the baby carriage was another Walter Jackson, three-months-old and lucky.

The first Walter Jackson was knocked down and his face looks now as if the horse stepped on it. Mrs. Jackson was knocked down and the wagon ran over her. Miss Williams was knocked down also.

As the rear wheel of the delivery wagon passed, it caught the baby carriage; the baby stuck, and in another minute was going just as fast as the delivery wagon. Walter Jackson the second, stuck to his carriage and incidentally to the delivery wagon.

Half way down the block the wagon struck a sidewalk showcase and the crash of glass further frightened the horse. He plunged back to the street, going through a line of Christmas trees with the wagon and the baby carriage.

Once through the trees, he smashed into an L pillar and there parted company with delivery wagon and baby carriage.

The wagon parted company with itself, and about all there was left of the baby carriage was that very limited portion of it immediately adjacent to Walter Jackson.

The baby looked much mussed up, but when Dr. Monaco of the Polyclinic Hospital examined him there wasn’t a mark to be found.

* * * * *

BOY KILLED BY CAR

_San Francisco Examiner_

NEW YORK, December 17.--“Over on Broadway there’s a regular Santy Claus,” said 10-year-old Johnny Nugent to his chum, 7-year-old Eddie Bowler, as school let out on the East Side this afternoon. “I never seen no Santy Claus--only pictures. Did you? Let’s go over?”

They put their books away, Johnny in his home, Eddie in his. Then they trudged, skipping curbs and whistling, across to the region of a department store at Broadway and Thirty-fourth street.

“I was a kid last year,” said Johnny. “Me mother couldn’t let me come here and I dasn’t go without asking.”

They didn’t have any money, of course. Johnny’s mother is a widow and Eddie’s folks have little to spare for the children. But an idea seized Johnny; he would start earning money at once. He went to a newsboy, and the latter, with the freemasonry of the streets, “lent” him two papers to sell. In a moment he was yelling “Extry--All about the murder trial!”

Eddie helped him to yell.

A customer beckoned from across the street. Johnny darted toward him just in front of the Hotel Martinique. A Broadway surface car loomed up suddenly. There was a little cry, then the forward pair of wheels ran over the boy and his body became jammed in the rear wheels.

While a tremendous crowd of shoppers surrounded the car, some men--and Eddie--crawled underneath. The men came out with Johnny’s body. His little chum had his torn cap and the two evening papers.

In the police station, before a group of policemen who wept, Eddie told the whole story while he clung to the battered relics.

“Mr. Lieutenant,” he asked at the end, “do you think Johnny will get alive again?”

“Maybe Santa Claus will take care of him,” said Dr. Gilhooley gravely, and he turned quickly away.

* * * * *

SUBWAY ACCIDENT

_New York Times_

Seven persons were killed and eighty-five injured shortly before 8 o’clock yesterday morning when a blast of dynamite in the excavation for the new Seventh Avenue subway carried away all the plank thoroughfare between Twenty-third and Twenty-fifth Streets, sweeping down into the great hole a crowded trolley car and a brewery automobile truck.

That the toll of dead and injured was not many times greater was due to the fact that the supports of the subway structure gave way slowly, affording an opportunity for hundreds of persons who were on their way to work to scurry to side streets and to the walks which were at the sides of the excavation. Most of those injured were in the Seventh Avenue trolley car, which was of the closed type and was north-bound. When the tracks sagged the car slid into the hole. It crumpled like pasteboard when it struck the tangle of iron, wood, and rock in the bottom of the excavation. Two of the persons killed were passengers in the car. All the others were laborers in the tunnel caught beneath the wreckage.

Within an hour after the accident happened seven independent investigations to place the blame were under way. These inquiries were started by District Attorney Perkins, the Fire Department, the Public Service Commission, Coroner Feinberg, the contracting company, the State Industrial Commission, and the Street Railway Company.

The investigators said that before the responsibility could be determined positively they would need the testimony of August Midnight. Midnight is the licensed blaster who set the dynamite charge. He was seen after the accident, but disappeared, and up to a late hour last night had not been found. The police sent out a general alarm for his arrest.

According to Policeman Daniel O’Shay of the West Twentieth Street Station, who was standing at Twenty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, it was about 7:50 o’clock when he heard the explosion, which was followed by a sudden rising and then a sagging of the temporary roadway in Seventh Avenue. A few seconds later the structure gave way and with a crash settled down into the big hole. The street car was directly in front of O’Shay, and he saw it drop with the crumbling roadway, and heard the cries of the terror-stricken passengers.

O’Shay instantly ran to a fire box and turned in an alarm, after which he notified Police Headquarters by telephone. When he got back to the accident to do his part in the work of rescue, the scene down deep in the excavation was appalling.

All that was left of the car, it appeared, was the roof and the steel trucks. The passengers inside, flung together in a confused mass, were screaming and struggling. On top of the debris, not far from the Twenty-fourth Street side of the wreckage, was the body of a stout, well-dressed woman. Persons on the sidewalk more than thirty feet above her saw that she was injured terribly. She was still alive when taken from the excavation, but died in a few minutes. The body was identified as that of Mrs. Martha V. Newton, 67 years old, of 243 Waverly Place.

Fire ladders were let down into the hole, and firemen and policemen, reckless of danger to themselves, scrambled over the debris to rescue the injured and recover the dead. Mrs. Newton was one of the first of those carried up the ladders to the sidewalk and into the National Cloak and Suit Company, where she died. This company, which operates a model welfare department for the benefit of its 4,100 employes, has an up-to-date hospital connected with its plant, and to this infirmary scores of the injured were taken to have their wounds dressed.

Ambulances from all parts of the city were called, and soon there was a force of thirty surgeons and as many more nurses at work. Several hundred emergency men employed by the contractors were hurried into the excavation to facilitate the rescue. Mayor Mitchel, Chairman McCall of the Public Service Commission, Police Commissioner Woods, District Attorney Perkins, and other city and county officials arrived early and witnessed the removal of some of the injured and the dead.

The rescuers found many wounded people and one dead man in the wreckage of the street car. The dead man was Louis Krugman, a garment worker, of 308 East Eighth Street. Another of those in the car died soon after being removed from the wreckage. The worst injured were taken into the emergency hospital of the Suit Company, while others were treated in the streets by ambulance doctors and sent to their homes.

Two priests from St. Colomba’s Catholic Church, Fathers Rogers and Higgins, descended into the excavation and aided the rescuers. William Dennison, the subway engineer who was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and was expected to die, was found with a girder across his chest, but was conscious, and Father Higgins anointed him before he was carried away. When a stimulant was offered to Dennison to alleviate his suffering, he refused, saying he did not drink.

The stifling odor of gas from broken mains hampered the rescuers. The Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity had employes at the cavity in eight minutes after the accident. They found that one twenty-four-inch high pressure fire main and several six-inch water mains had been broken, and that the water was rising in the excavation. Within half an hour they had all the high pressure mains closed, and thirty minutes later arrangements had been made through adjoining mains so that the high pressure system was ready for use. The smaller mains were shut off by the subway contractors, and temporary services were installed to meet the needs of the residents of the block.

Through the fortunate presence at Seventh Avenue and Twenty-third Street of a patrolman for the Consolidated Gas Company, the gas was shut off soon. Two mains had been broken; but on account of the experience in the construction of the Boston subway, when men were asphyxiated by escaping gas in a similar accident, the gas mains are laid along the curb in all the present construction in New York; so that while a considerable amount of gas escaped on the street it did no damage.

Fire Chief Kenlon directed much of the rescue work, and fifty additional firemen without apparatus were called out as soon as the nature of the emergency was known. Forty-four alarm boxes were put out of commission by the breaking of wires when the street went down, but service was restored with overhead wires an hour later.

Immediately after the arrival of Acting Chief Inspector Dillon, who directed the police reserves, called from all parts of Manhattan and the Bronx, tenants were ordered to quit the houses in Seventh Avenue from Twenty-third to Twenty-fifth Streets until the authorities decided whether it was safe for them to return. At 7 o’clock at night they were permitted to return to their homes.

Acting Police Inspector Joseph Conroy, in conjunction with officials of the construction company, sent policemen at night throughout the five boroughs to the homes of 200 employes on the company’s payroll. All of the men were accounted for except two--J. X. Zavina of 300 Avenue A and John McCormick of 317 Bowery. McCormick had been reported dead earlier in the day. At the address given for Zavina it was said that no man of that name lived there.

The Seventh Avenue car service was suspended south of Thirty-second Street, and it will be at least a week, it is said, before service is resumed below that point.

The thousands of spectators who crowded as near the great cavity as they could during the morning and gave the police reserves a hard task at the danger zone ropes, became alarmed when it was reported that dynamite was still beneath the fallen structure and that more explosions might follow. Twelve sticks of unexploded dynamite were carried up at one time, and the firemen took charge of it.

The engineers later said that there was no more dynamite in the cavity, and that the twelve sticks had been carried down early in the morning by a powder man who was to explode them in small blasts after the big explosion at 8 o’clock. The rules were strict regarding the handling of dynamite, the company officials said, and they were sure that there was no further danger to the lives of the rescuers after the twelve sticks had been taken out.

Colonel William Hayward of the Public Service Commission stood at the edge of the great hole and pointed to the crumpled wooden car.

“Look at that car,” he said. “That’s what we ought to investigate, for before you is a picture of what is going to happen when one of the old wooden cars on the elevated takes a jump to the street. I fought against those old cars going on the elevated, but I was voted down. I will always fight them or any other sort of wooden cars for New York traffic.

“If that car down there had been a steel car I do not believe a person would have been hurt. At least the passengers would not have been crushed.”

The contract for the subway work affected by the accident was awarded originally to Canavan Brothers, but was taken over by the United States Realty and Improvement Company on Dec. 31, 1913. The price was fixed at $2,401,306.75. The job was 75 per cent. completed yesterday morning. The part is designated officially as Section 5, Route 4 and 38 and extends from midway between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets to midway between Thirtieth and Thirty-first Streets.

The company also has a contract for the section from Commerce to Sixteenth Street, and for Section 2 of the Broadway subway from Twenty-sixth to Twenty-eighth Street. The total amount of all subway contracts held by the company is $6,996,037.75, of which 40 per cent. has been paid. The contractors are under a $75,000 bond for the completion of the construction and 15 per cent. of the payment will be withheld until the work is accepted.

The contractors are liable under the provisions of the workmen’s compensation law for death and injury of employes. The company is insured, according to officials, against losses by other accidents.

The United States Realty and Improvement Company has enormous assets. Its capital is $30,000,000. Among the realty properties listed in its name are the Flatiron Building, Broadway and Fifth Avenue; 17 Battery Place, 85 and 87 Beaver Street, 96 and 98 Mercer Street, 67 and 69 Wall Street, 91 and 93 Wall Street, 123-27 West Twentieth Street, 124-28 West Twentieth Street, 112 West Twenty-first Street, 118 West Twenty-first Street, 122-26 West Twenty-first Street, 41-45 East Twenty-second Street, 128-32 West Thirtieth Street, 202-08 West Thirty-seventh Street, 111-19 Broadway, 304-12 Fourth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue, 494-98 Seventh Avenue.

Following are the officials of the company which faces enormous damage suits for the accident: President, Wilson S. Kinnear; Secretary, Richard G. Babbage; Treasurer, Byron M. Fellows; Directors--Harry S. Black, Chairman; R. G. Babbage, Frank A. Vanderlip, John F. Harris, William A. Poillon, John D. Crimmins, P. A. Valentine, Harry Bronner, William A. Merriman, W. S. Kinnear, C. E. Hermann, F. W. Upham, Franklin Murphy, and B. M. Fellows. The main offices are at 111 Broadway.

The Superintendent is E. A. Little. C. H. Stengle is chief engineer. S. S. Jones is in charge of the construction work which collapsed. The supervising engineer is B. C. Collier, and the engineer immediately in charge of the division which caved in is H. R. Jacobson.

Supervising the work for the Public Service Commission are Alfred Craven, chief engineer for the commission; Robert Ridgeway, supervising engineer in charge of subway construction; Andrew Veitch, in charge of the section, and Stephen Koronski, immediately in charge of the division that caved in.

* * * * *

RUN DOWN BY TRAIN

_Boston Traveler_

In a race with an express train over Lyman’s bridge on the Southern division of the Boston & Maine railroad at Waltham, Gerald Ross, 15-year-old son of Herbert Ross of 95 Carroll street, Waltham, was overtaken and instantly killed yesterday. A companion, Kenneth Harrison, 11 years old, of 145 Fourth street, was struck by a cylinder of the engine and suffered a broken arm. His brother, Norman Harrison, 14 years old, escaped uninjured.

The boys stood in the middle of the single track on Lyman’s bridge, a long trestle over which trains cross a small stream. They were watching a group of their friends sporting in Lyman’s pond, and did not notice the approach of the 4 o’clock express from Boston.

The locomotive’s warning whistle startled them as the train rounded a bend 100 yards away. The bridge was too narrow for the boys to remain on it safely while the train passed. To cling to the girders and hang suspended over the rocky bed of the stream 25 feet below while the express shook the trestle was hazardous. As the locomotive bore down upon them the three boys started to race toward the end of the bridge.

The engineer shut off steam, but the locomotive continued to gain on the fleeing trio, the whistle shrieking the warning to the boys to jump from the trestle.

Norman Harrison realized his danger and leaped to the ground, 12 feet below. Kenneth turned to the side of the track and was about to jump when the engine hit his arm and threw him from the trestle. Gerald Ross raced on between the rails, hoping to reach the end of the bridge. The engine struck him and he died instantly.

Ross would have entered the Waltham high school as a freshman this morning.

A police ambulance carried Kenneth Harrison to the Waltham Hospital. Norman Harrison escaped with bruises.

* * * * *

TRAIN DERAILED

_Milwaukee Journal_

Two hundred people narrowly escaped death or serious injury early Monday when the engine on passenger train No. 13, on the Fond du Lac division of the Chicago and Northwestern road, due in Milwaukee at 12:10 a. m., going over forty miles an hour, jumped the track two miles north of Lake Shore Junction.

The tire on one of the rear drive-wheels came off, throwing the locomotive from the track. It tore along for over 150 yards, across a trestle, and just as the nose of the engine turned down the fifteen-foot embankment, Engineer Frank Purcell brought the train to a stop.

The train was over a half hour late and was pounding hard to make up time. But few of the people knew of their danger, the rattle of stone and gravel against the cars being the only sign that something was wrong.

Some of the passengers dared the biting cold and walked to the end of the car line, four miles away, but most of them remained to be brought into the city at 4 a. m. by a relief train.

The train blocked traffic on the Fond du Lac division until a late hour Monday. Several trains were held up, both north and south bound. The wrecker, which did not get out until 4 a. m., took over two hours to get the engine on the rails and bring the train into town.

Hurrying to Milwaukee to the bedside of Mrs. Grant Gilson, 3307 Western-av, were her husband and her mother, Mrs. W. Gilson. When the train was wrecked, the two were made nearly frantic by the information that it would be two hours or more before a relief train would arrive. With a few others, they tramped, unmindful of the stinging cold, to Lake Shore Junction, thinking they could make street car connections there. By good luck they caught a southbound freight on the Lake Shore division.

* * * * *

FATAL RAILROAD WRECK

_Milwaukee Sentinel_

JERSEY CITY, N. J., Nov. 6.--Four were killed and over 200 were injured in the wreck of a Philadelphia local on the Pennsylvania railway, which ran through an open switch at Brunswick street junction, crashed into a dead yard engine and piled up four cars in a heap of tangled wreckage on Saturday.

Every ambulance, police patrol and fire wagon available has been utilized to remove the injured, many of whom are seriously hurt. The wreck took place on the elevated structure upon which the Pennsylvania enters Jersey City, and the fire department was needed to get the injured to the street level that they might be hurried to the hospitals.

The following are the dead:

JOHN MONROE, Perth Amboy, engineer.

JOHN M’CLURE, Newark, N. J., fireman.

JOHN SPILLE, Trenton, N. J., engineer.

STENCIO DIOGOSIE, Jersey City, track walker.

The list of injured, made at the various hospitals, follows:

Max Donelson, 42 years old, New York, bruised about body; unidentified man, suffering from shock, probable internal injury; F. H. Clark, Metuchen, N. J., cut about face and head; George E. Siddell, 30 years old, Elizabeth, N. J.; Miss A. P. Rook, 24 years old, Elizabeth; A. C. Allison, 29 years old, New York; George L. Tench, 35 years old, Newark; W. E. Wing, 27 years old, Allendale, N. J.

Fireman Daniel Meade, Newark, of the light engine, jumped as the trains came together and was unhurt. The police, on investigation, found a broken rail on track No. 3 at the scene of the accident, and agreed that this was the cause of the wreck.

Towerman Williamson, who had been arrested, charged with throwing the switch and bringing the train and engine together, was at once discharged.

The train left Philadelphia at 7:58 Saturday morning and was filled with commuters going to their work.

Engineer Monroe of the passenger train was running at a good rate of speed to make up time, and neither he nor his fireman had a chance to jump and save themselves.

The engine of the passenger train toppled over, part of it lying across the trestle work, in imminent danger of crashing to the street.

A passing policeman, hearing the crash, turned in the alarm, and the reserves and all ambulances possible were soon at hand, extricating the injured, which was a difficult task. Most of them were pinned down by the wreckage.

In the mail car, which was directly behind the engine, was more than $1,000,000 in specie, which was being transferred to New York by the Adams Express company. A special guard was hurriedly placed around this car.

When the wreck occurred, the Jersey City station was crowded with men and women about to leave for Princeton for the Princeton-Dartmouth football game. This crowd was thrown into great confusion until the officials informed them that they might proceed to their destination via the Jersey Central railroad, the Pennsylvania tracks being blocked.

At the hospitals it was reported that none of those taken there were seriously hurt, and that all would recover. The bodies of the dead have been taken to Hughes’ morgue. The officials of the road are investigating the cause of the wreck.

That a hundred were not killed was due to the equipment of the cars. They were of steel, with steel beams and concrete flooring into which the seat frames were set. When the cars toppled over, there was no splintering of wood, and when the windows were shattered, the glass flew outward. Nearly all of the injured, as soon as their hurts were attended to, left the hospitals and resumed their journey without giving their names.

* * * * *

FATAL RAILROAD COLLISION

_Milwaukee News_

New York, Dec. 31.--Spencer Trask, one of the leading financiers of the United States, was killed today by a freight train running into the rear of the New York Central passenger train on which he occupied the drawing room section at the rear end of the last car.

The accident occurred near Croton, N. Y. One other passenger was seriously injured, and the negro porter of the sleeping car was also badly hurt.

Mr. Trask, who was coming into the city from his home at Saratoga, was dressing in his compartment when the freight train plowed into the heavy passenger train, which is known as the Montreal Express. When his torn body was removed from the wreckage, it was found that he had only partly dressed himself.

The express had been stopped by a block signal, and why the freight behind it was not stopped has not been explained. The freight struck with such force as to demolish the rear end of the last sleeper, telescoping the front end with the sleeper ahead.

Many of the occupants of the five sleepers had not fully dressed, and they were precipitated, half clad, into snow banks, with the temperature far below the freezing point.

Wrecking and relief trains were dispatched from the Harlem yards of the New York Central, and officials of the company hurried to the scene. Mr. Trask’s body was removed to the Croton morgue, and the injured passenger and porter were cared for by the local doctors. The passenger was unable to tell his name.

Those injured were for the most part in the smoking compartment at the extreme rear of the sleeper, where a group of passengers were gathered as the train proceeded down the river. Mr. Trask was on his way to this city from his home in Saratoga. Engineer Flanagan of the freight train stuck by his locomotive, but escaped serious injury.

Failure of a brakeman to walk far enough to the rear of the stalled Montreal train to flag the freight in time, is said to have caused the smashup.

The news of the banker’s death had no effect on the stock exchange, where prices were slightly above the close last night.

Spencer Trask, who was born here in 1844, entered the banking business immediately on his graduation from Princeton. His financial acumen was quickly recognized, and he soon became a power in the banking world.

Mr. Trask was among the first to recognize the genius of Thomas A. Edison, and identified himself with the Edison electric enterprises. The banker was a director in many railroads and realty companies and was deeply interested in educational and philanthropic societies. Several years ago he bought and reorganized The New York Times. He was president of the National Arts club and a member of numerous other prominent New York clubs. Mr. Trask was married in 1874 to Miss Katrina Nichols.

* * * * *

NOTE--_The following two stories should be compared as reports of the same accident given in two New York morning papers._

DIVERS DIE IN SHIP’S HOLD

(1)

_New York Tribune_

Death followed triumphant achievement with terrible swiftness for three men yesterday, when they were smothered in the hold of the steamship H. M. Whitney, of the Metropolitan outside line to Boston, which they had helped to raise only a few hours before after a month of hard work in the raging currents of Hell Gate.

One, a diver, went down into the hold to see if a patch he had put on the wrecked bottom from the outside was holding well. He died, it is supposed, as the poisonous gases rose about him, and two more, going after him to see why he did not return, met the same fate.

It was not until three men lay dead in the fetid hold, suffocated by the gases that the cargo of hides, beer and perhaps half a hundred other things gave off, that a glimmering of reason seemed to come to those in charge of the work. Then the needless sacrifice of more lives was prevented. Some one took charge, and men equipped with divers’ helmets rescued two more men who had gone down for their comrades, and brought up the bodies of the dead.

Augustus Bjorklund was the diver who brought about the fatal ending of the day’s work. No one knows just why he went down into the hold, warned as he had been to beware of the poisonous gases that always accumulate when a vessel has lain long in the water, but the officials of the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company suppose that he wanted to see his work from inside.

Reports of what happened next on the Whitney were vague. While the men were going down and dying, no one seemed to know anything. There was no panic; there was no excitement. Michael Menus, one of the wrecking crew, apparently followed Bjorklund to see if anything was wrong, and died as he reached the bottom of the hold, falling unconscious from the ladder he descended. Then Herman Fabricius went down, and he, too, died almost at once.

John Hanson was the next man to go down, with a rope and some caution this time, for it was beginning to be realized that something was amiss. Hanson came back alive, but unconscious. Captain Kivlin having realized that a disaster had come upon the ship, divers went down and saved Hanson’s life, bringing up the bodies of the three dead men besides.

That account of the tragedy is as much as could be gleaned with any certainty yesterday. It was hard enough to get aboard the Whitney at all, and no one there seemed to know much. The coroner’s office made a brief investigation yesterday afternoon, and the bodies were removed to an undertaking establishment in West 24th street. The police found out little more than the casual spectators who thronged the pier.

The H. M. Whitney went aground in Hell Gate on Middle Four Reef just a month ago yesterday, and in the early morning she was floated after long and hard efforts. It had been a hard job, and those who had accomplished it were more than happy. The ship had been brought down to East 102d street, and about all the work that was being done was to keep the pumps working. The lighters with the huge derricks lay alongside, and when the tragedy occurred many of the men in charge of the work were at luncheon.

None of the men who died had orders to go down into the hold. This was dwelt on with much emphasis by the officials of the wrecking company. Captain Kivlin, who was in charge of the work, was arrested and taken to the Harlem court, where Magistrate Herrman refused to do more than remand him to the coroner. Apparently no one in charge of the work could have foreseen the accident and no one could be held responsible.

Both Bjorklund and Fabricius lived at Stapleton, Staten Island, and Menus lived at 1 Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn. Supt. Kivlin said that Bjorklund was one of the most experienced divers in the company’s employ and he couldn’t understand how the man happened to venture into the gas-ridden hold without testing it for the poisonous vapors. “With such a mixed cargo as the Whitney is carrying submerged for thirty-one days, it was certain to be almost fatal for any one to go into the hold until it had been thoroughly ventilated,” he said. “He should have taken the precaution to drop down a lantern before he went down himself.”

Capt. Hone of the Henry M. Whitney said yesterday that the damage to the steamer can be repaired very quickly when she gets into drydock. As a result of his steamer’s misfortune the Government has decided to put a bell buoy on the reef.

The pilots of the Sound steamers breathed easier yesterday afternoon when they approached Hell Gate and found the steamer out of the channel. The larger vessels, especially the Fall River Line steamers, have had a tight squeeze sometimes, and in foggy weather it was exceedingly dangerous to attempt the passage.

(2)

_New York Sun_

Nobody was hurt when the steamboat H. M. Whitney went on Nigger Point reef, Hell Gate, in a fog a month ago, but three men were killed on her yesterday an hour after she had been raised. She had been pumped out by the Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company and floated over to the foot of East 102 street. Three of the wrecking crew went down the forward hatchway into the hold, were overcome by carbonic acid fumes and were taken out dead.

One was August Bjorklund, a veteran diver, who had patched up one of the big holes in the side of the steamer. He took with him Herman Fabricius, a blacksmith, and Michael Menus, a laborer. Supt. Thomas Kivlin, in charge of the wreckers, and Capt. George Hone of the Henry M. Whitney had warned all the wreckers and members of the crew that it would be unsafe to venture into the hold until the air had been purified.

The Whitney’s cargo consisted mainly of green hides, miscellaneous freight made up largely of rubber, resin and molasses, and a quantity of coal. Some 500 tons had been taken out and yesterday 1,800 tons remained. The divers had patched the hole in the boat’s bottom, and yesterday morning, having pumped her out, the wreckers got two immense chains under the bow and stern of the Whitney, and she was lifted almost out of the water by four powerful floating derricks. Shortly before noon the derricks headed for the Manhattan shore and an hour later the freighter was lying at the foot of 102d street.

The derricks had scarcely been tied up there when Bjorklund and his two assistants went down the second forward hatchway. No one saw them go, but a few minutes later one of the wreckers, happening to pass the hatchway, looked down into the hold and saw the three men stretched out on the bottom. Supt. Kivlin was notified, and he called the members of his force and the crew of the steamer around him.

“The man who goes down after those men takes his life in his hand, but there ought to be somebody here brave enough to do it,” said Kivlin. “If we can get them out of that rotten gas promptly we may save them.”

There wasn’t any response for a moment, but suddenly Diver Jack Hanson worked his way through the little group around the hatchway with a diver’s helmet over his head. Hanson didn’t speak until he had taken half a dozen steps down the ladder, when he said:

“I guess I’m about the best friend Gus Bjorklund had, and if the boys will keep me supplied with air I’ll get those poor fellows out as quickly as any one could.”

He tied a rope around Bjorklund’s shoulders, and while Bjorklund was being pulled up on deck two more ropes were thrown to Hanson. He secured the ropes around Menus and Fabricius, and in ten minutes all three men were on deck and were receiving first aid treatment. Ambulances were sent for, but it was nearly half an hour before Dr. Moeckel of the Harlem Hospital arrived. The three men were dead then. Supt. Kivlin was arrested and taken before Coroner Acritelli, who released him to appear at the inquest.

* * * * *

SHIPS COLLIDE IN FOG

_Boston Transcript_

In a fog bank that had closed in only about twenty minutes before, the four-masted schooner Alma E. A. Holmes of Philadelphia was rammed and sunk by the Eastern Steamship Corporation steamer Belfast, just outside of Graves Light, shortly after six o’clock this morning. That no lives were lost was undoubtedly due to the action of Captain Frank Brown of the Belfast, who held the bow of the steamer in the hole in the schooner’s side until Captain Henry A. Smith and the eight members of the crew had climbed aboard the Belfast. Two minutes after the Belfast backed away, the Holmes, which had been struck on the starboard side between the fore and mainmasts, plunged bow first to the bottom, her stern lifting so high out of the water that about twenty feet of the keel was visible to those on the steamer.

The Belfast, with about 150 passengers, was on the way here from Bangor and Penobscot River ports. The weather had been thick all night, and Captain Brown had been constantly on duty in the pilot house. Shortly before the collision occurred those on the Belfast heard the schooner’s fog horn sounding at intervals. The steamer, too, was sounding her whistle, when out of the fog and directly ahead appeared the Holmes. At the first glimpse Captain Brown ordered the engines reversed. The distance between the vessels, however, was too short, and a moment later the sharp stem of the Belfast cut through the schooner’s side.

Frightened passengers hurried out on deck as they felt the shock of the collision, but within a few minutes they were assured by members of the crew that they were in no danger. Many, nevertheless, feared that the Belfast was going to sink. Meantime, Captain Brown held the steamer’s bow where it was, as he realized that the damage was serious and that the schooner, laden deep as she was with coal, would go down quickly if the sea was permitted to rush in.

Meanwhile, the skipper and crew of the schooner had got on deck, two or three of the sailors in scanty attire, as they did not have time to dress after being roused from their bunks. Captain Smith was on deck when the accident happened, and perceived when the steamer was sighted that the collision was bound to occur. He shouted for all of the crew to come on deck, and nearly all responded before the crash.

While passengers crowded forward on the decks of the Belfast, a ladder was let down to the deck of the schooner, and one after the other the crew of the Holmes climbed to safety. Captain Smith had some difficulty in impressing some of the crew with the necessity of quick action, one man being particularly stubborn. The rescue was accomplished in about ten minutes, according to Captain Brown of the Belfast, and then the steamer backed away. As she withdrew from the hole in the schooner’s side, it was seen that the Belfast’s stem had been twisted over to port. Otherwise she was apparently undamaged, and was not leaking, according to Captain Brown, after she docked at India Wharf.

The sight of the schooner going to the bottom was one that the passengers will remember. In Captain Brown’s opinion it was spectacular, in view of the manner in which the craft seemed to stand on her head, with the stern rearing almost straight out of the water, until she disappeared beneath the surface. Every one of the passengers praised Captain Brown highly for the manner in which he handled the situation and rescued the shipwrecked men. According to Captain Brown of the Belfast, the collision took place about four and one-half miles northeast of the dumping ground buoy outside of Graves Light, and the schooner sank in about twenty fathoms of water. Neither he nor Captain Smith cared to make any statement regarding responsibility for the accident. An investigation to determine this will be made by the United States Steamboat Inspectors.

The Alma E. A. Holmes was bound from Norfolk to Salem with 1819 tons of coal. She sailed from Norfolk a week ago Wednesday. She was a craft of 1208 tons gross register, 1069 net, 202 feet long, 41 feet beam and 18 feet deep, and was built at Camden, Me., in 1896. Joseph Holmes, Sr., of Toms River, N. J., was the owner.

* * * * *

BOAT BATTERED IN GALE

_Philadelphia Ledger_

ATLANTIC CITY, Nov. 20.--As gallant a fight as South Coast mariners have put up in many a day, with life as the stake, was made by the skipper and crew of the Drake, one of the fastest and smartest of the Inlet fishing fleet. Coast guards hardly knew her when she staggered into port this afternoon, battered and torn, a leaking scarecrow of her former trim self.

On board Mark Broome, master, Tomkins, the mate, and the nine members of the crew were in much the same state as their vessel. All hands were half dead from loss of sleep and completely worn out after a 36-hour battle with the gale that swept the Atlantic yesterday.

The Drake was making a full speed ahead plunge for Absecon late Thursday night, when the gale, ripping up the coast, struck her. There was nothing to do but turn and fly before the tempest, with everybody aboard hoping they might escape the treacherous shoals running miles seaward of Brigantine.

Then, to make matters worse, the Drake’s engine jammed and went out of commission and Tomkins, the mate, almost was swept overboard by a boom, while he clung to the bowsprit trying to pour oil on the waves. Broome, the skipper, saw his mate’s peril, and his presence of mind saved Tomkins from going into the sea.

It looked for a time last night, when the Drake sprung a leak, as if the staunch craft never would see harbor again. Everybody took turns at the pumps, except Broome, who stood over his flagging men, keeping them awake when exhaustion gripped them. The Drake was minus half her cargo of fish when she finally came in over the bar today.

* * * * *

FATAL SHIPWRECK

_New York Times_

ASTORIA, Ore., Sept. 19.--Between seventy and eighty men, women, and children, coastwise passengers and crew, were drowned late yesterday when the three-masted schooner Francis H. Leggett was pounded to pieces in a gale sixty miles from the mouth of the Columbia River.

Two men were rescued by passing steamers and carried to Astoria and Portland. They told how the sea tore the vessel to pieces, and how the passengers were drowned, a boat load at a time, as the lifeboats capsized, or met their fate a little later when the vessel turned over.

Alexander Farrell, a survivor, said that, at the height of the storm, Capt. J. Jensen of San Francisco, a passenger, who had lost his own ship six months ago and had been marooned for four months on an uninhabited island, went to the aid of Capt. Moro of the Leggett, took command of the passengers, and controlled them until he sank with the schooner.

The schooner’s wireless, on a route alive with ships, raised only the Japanese cruiser Idzumo, and sank hours before any craft reached her position. The steamer Beaver, which caught the Idzumo’s report of the Leggett’s distress, said that the Idzumo gave no position for the distressed vessel. She asked for more details, but got no response from the warship.

Plunging on her course for the Columbia River, the Beaver ran upon the oil tanker Buck, standing by a swirl of wreckage and timber which indicated where the Leggett had sunk. The Buck transferred Farrell to the Beaver for treatment. She remained for some time searching for bodies afloat, or for some other men, who, like Farrell, might have been fortunate enough to seize a bit of lumber and strong enough to cling to it for many hours in the icy water.

The other rescued passenger, George H. Pullman of Winnipeg, Canada, is on board the Buck, which now is lying off the Columbia bar awaiting calmer weather before crossing in.

It is believed that Capt. Moro of the Leggett was washed overboard shortly before the ship sank, for it was Capt. Jensen, Farrell said, who was in charge of a futile attempt to launch two lifeboats, which foundered as soon as they struck the water.

Farrell, who had recovered considerably tonight from his exhaustion, said that the Leggett carried a full list of passengers, between forty and fifty, while the crew numbered about twenty-five. Among the passengers were six women, a girl and a boy, including the Captain’s wife, the mate’s wife, and the wife of Capt. Anderson of the schooner Carrie Dove.

“We left Grey’s Harbor Wednesday morning,” said Farrell. “Later the sea became rough. The Leggett began to pound heavily and the Captain gave orders to jettison the deck load. Then the seas swept off the hatches, and the hold began to fill. Capt. Jensen ordered the passengers into their cabins, and many were still there when the boat went down.

“When it was seen that there was no hope for the vessel, Capt. Jensen ordered the lifeboats launched. In the first boat there were thirty persons, two of whom were women. There were only six women on board, and the other four were not at that end of the ship when the boat was launched.

“As soon as the boat struck the water it capsized, and all the occupants were thrown into the sea and drowned.

“A few minutes later an attempt was made to launch the second lifeboat. It contained four women and their husbands. The boat met the same fate as the other boat.

“I was standing on the bridge when the ship went down. The boat capsized as she sank. I don’t know how long I was under water, but when I came to the top I grabbed a railroad tie and hung on. The wireless operator was also hanging to the tie. I saw men sinking all around me, but could not hear their cries owing to the screeching gale.

“It soon became dark, but it was 1 o’clock in the morning when the Beaver picked me up. The wireless operator clung to the tie with me for several hours, and then, benumbed by cold, he dropped off. No one was to blame for the wreck. The boat was unable to stand the storm.”

* * *

The Leggett was a three-masted schooner of 1,606 tons gross registry and a capacity of 1,500,000 feet of lumber. She was operated by the Charles R. McCormick Company of San Francisco.

* * * * *

NOTE--_The following two stories illustrate different arrangements of the same material and were probably telegraphed by different news associations._

EXPLOSION IN MINE

(1)

_San Francisco Examiner_

MARIANNA (Pa.), November 28.--Within three minutes after a State mine inspector and the mine superintendent had returned from an inspection of the district, the model Marianna mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company was blown up by an explosion to-day.

At midnight the rescuers, penetrating through a portion of the shaft, came upon the bodies of 142 men, most of whom had been killed instantaneously by the debris flung upon them by the explosion. Many of the remains were badly mangled. Eighteen bodies were immediately carried to the top of the shaft, where they were encoffined. Six others, killed at the top of the shaft, had been previously recovered. Whether any more remain in the wrecked mine will not be known until morning.

When she learned that her husband was among the dead, Mrs. Joseph Jones broke through the guard of fifty State constabulary and attempted to dash herself to the bottom of the mine. She was caught and restrained just as she was about to make the fatal jump. Mrs. George Acker became violently insane when she heard that her husband was in the mine, and was arrested and placed under restraint.

At 1 o’clock Peter Arnold, an American, was brought out of the Rachel shaft alive. Joseph Kearney, one of the rescuers, reported that others were living.

The Marianna mine, which had been in operation less than three months, was considered the model mine of the world. Every device known to modern invention had been installed to prevent just such a tragedy as occurred to-day. But, wrecked by a mysterious explosion, the very machinery which was to have made accident impossible hampered the rescuers at their work. They did not understand the wonderful mechanism which bolstered the great mine with such a network of contrivances, and they were delayed in the attempt to bore through to the bodies of the men lying dead in the bottom of the shaft.

The explosion came just before the noon hour in the Rachel shaft. It was so terrific that the blast, blowing up the whole length of the deep shaft, tore loose the giant elevator cage at the surface of the mine and hurled it 300 feet away.

Two men were in the cage at the time. Both were instantly killed, the head of one of them being literally blown off.

Immediately following the explosion, rescuers began frantically to burrow at the mouth of the mine in a futile effort to dig down through the tremendous masses of coal that blocked the upper reaches of the shaft, while other rescuers, headed by President John K. Jones, of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company, rushed to the scene in special trains from Pittsburg and Monongahela with the latest appliances, which were erected at the head of the shaft to bore to the entombed men.

Five thousand women and children and miners thronged the mouth of the mine, the former weeping piteously and pleading for the rescue of their fathers or brothers.

The officials of the mine are in a pitiful condition. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the Marianna fireproof, and experts have assured them that such a disaster as occurred to-day was impossible. In the excitement and panic it is impossible thus far to learn the names of the victims. But the books of the company indicate that the majority of the 275 buried in the Rachel are Americans and that most of the others are English miners imported by the company two months ago to work the richest shafts.

(2)

_Chicago Record-Herald_

PITTSBURG, Nov. 28.--Two hundred and seventy-five men, a majority of them Americans, are believed all to have perished in an explosion which wrecked the mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company at Marianna, Washington County, shortly before noon to-day. Marianna is considered the model mining town of the world, and the mine itself was claimed to be as nearly perfect in equipment as modern science could devise.

Since the blast entombed all the men in the mine, smoke has been issuing from the shaft, showing that the workings are afire, and rescuers who entered were compelled, after progressing only a short distance, to retreat on account of the intense heat.

The explosion happened at 11:30 o’clock this morning, when the full force was at work. The explosion was terrific, and if all in the mine were not mangled by its force, it seems certain that they perished in the subsequent fire or were suffocated by the deadly fumes.

The force of the explosion can be imagined when it is known that the heavy iron cage which carried the men from the surface to the workings was blown 300 feet away from the mouth of the shaft. Two men who were in the cage at the time were killed, the head of one of them being blown off.

Three foreigners who were at the mouth of the mine when the explosion occurred are in the hospital in a critical condition from injuries received when the mine cage was blown out of the shaft. They also inhaled the poisonous fumes.

The fanhouse was partly demolished and the fans stopped for over an hour.

The explosion was in shaft No. 2. The only way to reach the workings is through that shaft, as shaft No. 1 is not completed. Some of the officials of the coal company believe it will be necessary to dig through 800 feet of solid coal before they can reach the workings.

State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman Kennedy had just completed a two days’ examination of the mine, and had come from the mine only three minutes before the explosion occurred.

When the town was shaken by the blast, all the people rushed from their houses. Learning of the extent of the disaster, the members of the families of the doomed men rushed to the mouth of the mine, and a pathetic scene followed. Wives, mothers and relatives of the men are gathered about, and their cries are pitiful.

It is said there is a large gas well in the vicinity of the mine. Whether the gas from this well was communicated to the mine and became ignited, or whether powder and dynamite used for blasting purposes exploded, cannot now be ascertained.

Rushing as fast as steam could carry them, special trains from this city and Monongahela went to the scene of the disaster. On them were officials of the coal company and many prominent miners who are considered experts in the work of rescue. The latest appliances from the new United States laboratory in this city, which were recently tested before foreign and American experts, for the saving of life in mine explosions, were hurried to the mine.

John H. Jones, president of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company, was almost a physical wreck when he learned of the accident. He trembled in every limb and could scarcely speak. Accompanied by other officials of the company, and by J. W. Paul of the United States mine testing station located here, President Jones went at once to the scene in a special train.

Two assistants accompanied Mr. Paul, carrying patented helmets that make work possible in the most dangerous mine. With these men Mr. Paul expected to be able to save many lives.

Early reports as to the number of victims of the disaster varied greatly. The mine officials first claimed that not more than 100 men could have been caught, but it now is certain that 275 were at work at the time and that none in the shaft escaped.

State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman Kennedy, who had just completed a two days’ examination of the mine, declared that they had found it in perfect condition. At the present time, they say, it is impossible to state whether the explosion was caused by gas or by a powder explosion. Mr. Jones, president of the company, stated that almost the entire force of men were in the mine at the time of the explosion, but he did not know the full extent of the casualties.

Marianna was built recently by the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company. It necessitated a great outlay of money, as it was the intention to make the mine up to date and the living conditions of the miners the same as could be secured in a large city. The houses were of brick construction, and each contained a bathroom. When completed the town was said by foreign and American mine officials to be the most perfect mining town in the world.

* * * * *

ENTOMBED MINERS

_Kansas City Times_

JOPLIN, MO., June 18.--The occasional “rap-rap-rap” which has encouraged the men who are battling with the tons of rock and earth imprisoning two men in the Longacre-Chapman mine ceased yesterday afternoon. Daniel Hardendorf and Reed Taylor, the men who are buried, have now been in the mine since 6 o’clock last Friday night. There is hope yet for their rescue, but that hope grows weaker as the night wears on.

The best shovelers in the Joplin district, 150 of them, are working quietly, feverishly, knowing that every minute lost means that much less chance of rescuing the men. They work with strained nerves, in squads of eight which enter the shaft, then come up at the end of two hours completely exhausted.

A crowd of about five hundred persons, miners, friends and relatives, are at the mouth of the shaft. It’s a strange, pathetic crowd, alternately weeping and praying.

Through this crowd tonight four big, pale men elbowed their way. They were William Lester, Roy Woodmansee, Edward Spencer and A. H. Harwood, miners who were taken from the shaft Tuesday night after having been entombed themselves four days in another part of the mine. They pleaded to be allowed to help in the rescue work.

“Let us save them. It’s hell down there, poor fellows,” one said grimly.

A tragic figure in the crowd is Mrs. Hardendorf, wife of one of the entombed men. As the shifts of men go down she stands by and pleads with them to exert every effort. When the men, exhausted by their efforts, come up to be relieved, she works with the other women, passing around coffee and food.

Thirty-five feet of rock and earth separate the entombed miners from liberty. The two men have been without food, water or air more than eight days now. When the tapping ceased yesterday afternoon many shook their heads.

“They are dead,” they say sadly.

But the crowd about the shaft never diminishes and the shovelers never quit.

“Maybe they have gone farther into the drift to get better air,” some say hopefully.

About $1,500 has been raised by popular subscriptions to pay the men who are helping in the rescue work. The amount soon will be increased.

Experienced miners say it will be late Saturday night or early Sunday morning before the tons of rocks and earth can be shoveled away. If the buried miners have fainted from lack of air, there is little hope of reaching them alive. But if they have gone back farther in the drift they can be saved.

* * * * *

FALL FROM SCAFFOLD

_New York Times_

Because he had refused to take a seriously injured man in his automobile to St. Luke’s Hospital yesterday afternoon, the chauffeur of a machine standing outside of South Field, opposite Columbia University Library, was set upon by a crowd of Yale and Columbia University students and threatened with bodily injury unless he did so. Thoroughly frightened, the chauffeur consented to take the injured man to the hospital, where his condition is said to be serious.

The injured man was Peter Bunn, a bricklayer, of No. 231 East 80th street, who was working on Kent Hall, a new Columbia University building, at 116th street and Amsterdam avenue. Bunn and his brother John were on a scaffolding on the third floor of the building, overlooking South Field, the athletic field of the university, where Yale and Columbia were playing a game of baseball.

As the crowds began to leave the field, the two men shouted from their high perch and imitated the cheers of the students. While they were jumping about on the platform of the scaffold, it swung far out from the wall, and Peter fell to the ground.

* * * * *

TWO BOYS DROWN

_Chicago Tribune_

Joseph Tordio, 19 years old, of 920 Townsend street, tried to save Albert Arrigo, 8 years old, of 457 West Superior street, from drowning in the north branch of the river at Superior street last night. Both drowned.

Arrigo, a mere stripling, was fishing. He lost his balance and toppled from the pier. Screams of his brother, Charles, 12 years old, attracted Tordio. He threw off his shoes, coat, and hat and jumped in. For fifteen minutes the battle with death ran on.

Tordio did not know the science of rescuing a drowning person. He might have stunned the boy and got back to the pier. But he merely used his muscle. Then the little boy, in a death grapple, tightened his arms around Tordio like two small bands of steel.

The larger boy tired. The murky water ran over his face. For an instant he thought he might lose. That was his undoing. Fear unnerved him. He fought in a frenzy. They went down together, the younger boy strangling but still clasping his two small bands of steel around the rescuer’s body.

They came up, or Tordio’s face did. With the terror of death on him, Tordio made a last desperate effort. It failed. He opened his mouth to call for help, but the voice was drowned with the gurgling water. He quit. His hands went up in a last act of despair. Then they went down. In a moment there was nothing on the water at that point save a few tiny waves and a few bubbles.

The police came with grappling hooks. The body of little Arrigo was recovered. The doctors worked for an hour to drive air back into the water bloated lungs. It was futile.

Tordio’s body is still on the floor of the river somewhere. He did not know the boy he tried to save.

* * * * *

INVESTIGATION OF CAUSE OF DROWNING

_Boston Herald_

The city authorities, the police and the district attorney have been asked to investigate conditions at the deserted wharf on Albany street at the foot of Union Park where one boy was drowned on Tuesday afternoon and another narrowly escaped drowning on the morning of the same day. Residents of the neighborhood say that in the last decade the place has claimed no less than seven victims and has been the scene of a score of accidents more or less serious.

So far no one directly responsible for the recurring fatalities has been found. The premises are private property, the boys who frequent the place are trespassers under the law, the city believes that it has no right to interfere and the police of the district say that the only way they could deal with the situation would be to have an officer stationed on the ground day and night.

With a frontage of some 200 feet on Albany street the lot extends back over a grass-grown area about 50 feet to the South bay. At the edge of the water are the ruins of an old pier, a stretch of broken boards and a group of broken piles.

The whole place is absolutely open to the street and is unguarded by fence or barrier of any kind. It has all the attractions of a playground and swimming hole and is doubly alluring to the lads of the neighborhood owing to the fact that they have been warned off from time to time by the police.

All during the summer scores of boys of all ages, but chiefly between 5 and 14 years, haunt the old wharf, jumping from pile to pile or taking an occasional dip when the officer on the beat is not looking. From the shore the channel shelves down sharply to a depth of about 30 feet.

The nature of the danger was shown Tuesday afternoon. Alexander Penney, the 7-year-old son of Alexander Penney of 114 Maiden street, while playing fireman with several companions among the piles, slipped and fell into the water. His body disappeared and was not found until it was picked up yesterday morning near the Dover street bridge by the crew of the policeboat Watchman.

In the morning of the same day Arthur York, 5 years old, of Albany street, stumbled overboard and was rescued with considerable difficulty by John Melanphy, who was forced to dive before he could bring the boy to the surface.

Similar accidents have happened in the past with such frequency that the citizens of the neighborhood are demanding that some action be taken to close the wharf and keep the children away from it. Joseph E. Ferreira of 1 Pelham street, a business man, well known politically in the section, circulated a petition asking the city to take action. There were over 250 signers, but when the petition was presented to the mayor it was found that the city had no legal right to act. Mr. Ferreira has since appealed to the district attorney and to the police in an attempt to have the wharf fenced in.

Mayor Fitzgerald paid a personal visit to the scene of Tuesday’s accidents yesterday morning. He looked over the ground carefully and interviewed numerous small boys who had been attracted to the spot. Several of them were playing about the wharf end, apparently unmindful of the danger.

“The situation here is a deplorable one,” said Mayor Fitzgerald, “but up to the present I have been unable to discover any way in which the city can act. The premises are privately owned, and the city, so far as I am informed, has no right to fence the place in or otherwise block it from the street.

“Something should be done, however, to prevent the recurrence of drowning accidents. It would seem that much of the trouble would be obviated if the owners would consent to erect a high board fence. I believe also that the police might be a bit more vigilant, although I realize that the only sure way to keep boys off a lot like this would be to have an officer stationed here all the time.

“The place as it stands is a temptation to every child who loves the water. In the hot weather it is bound to lure about every healthy boy in the vicinity. If funds were available, I should suggest that the happiest solution of the difficulty would be for the city to take the land over and transform it into a bathing park. The neighborhood is crowded and the nearest public bathing place is at Dover street.

“The accident calls attention to the relatively small number of our boys that can swim. I have always advocated swimming instruction for our children, and the fatality of Tuesday only emphasizes the need of it.”

Mayor Fitzgerald allowed himself to be photographed at the spot where the accident occurred, and as he did so seven urchins grouped themselves about him. Six of them were under 10 years and the other 13 years old.

“How many of you boys can swim?” asked the mayor.

The six younger boys shook their heads and the oldest admitted that he could “a little.”

“That is a fair example of conditions,” said Mayor Fitzgerald, “and a good argument against allowing a place like this to exist.”

The property has been idle for a number of years and is said to have been the subject of litigation. The assessors’ books give the owners of the property as Grant and Alice Nilson, neither of whom is a resident of Boston.

If the owners do not take measures to shut the old wharf from the street, Mr. Ferreira and a number of other South End residents say they will appeal to the courts in an effort to secure a remedy.

* * * * *

BOY SAVES DROWNING MAN

_New York World_

Johnny Donivan, fifteen years old, No. 2005 Second avenue, went down to the Battery yesterday to look for a job, and the only job he found was to save a man from drowning. Johnny had no objection to saving a drowning man, but was much disappointed at not finding work, for his father has been out of a job since last Christmas, and there are eight in the family.

Daniel Wilson, who has been a deep-sea fireman, went to sleep on a pier and rolled off into the bay, striking his head on a rock. Then he floated seaward.

Johnny Donivan jumped in after Wilson. With both hands the fireman grabbed the boy so tightly around the throat that he almost squeezed the breath out of him.

Johnny seized the man around the waist, was pulled under water twice, but swam with Wilson to the pier, where the Liberty Island steamer makes fast. Policeman Joseph Murry hauled them out.

John Brown, watchman in the Barge Office, lent Johnny Donivan his old shirt and trousers while the boy’s raiment was drying in the sunshine. Johnny said he had a place in a picture frame store in Beaver street until eight weeks ago when he was let out. The only one in the family working is one of Johnny’s sisters, and she earns $3 a week as a dressmaker’s apprentice. A year ago he dived into the East River at One Hundred and Second street and saved a ten-year-old boy from drowning. On that occasion a policeman gave him five cents so he wouldn’t have to walk home.

* * * * *

BABY DROWNS

_Brooklyn Eagle_

Mrs. Rose Stock left her rooms, on the second floor of 550 South avenue, at 10 o’clock this morning to step across the street to make some purchases at a grocery store. As she closed the door, the baby, Harriet, 3 months old, was sleeping quietly in its crib, and Louis, 5 years old, with Dorothy, 3 years old, her other children, were playing.

Scarcely had the mother gone when an idea seized one of the two. It was probably Louis, although he credited Dorothy with it when asked about it. Why not take the baby out of its crib and give it a bath in the tub, as they had seen mother do so often? It was a brilliant thought. So Louis went and fetched the baby and took it to the bathroom.

The tub was full of water and clothes, for Mrs. Stock had been washing there the night before, and had not finished soaking the clothes. They set the baby in the water, which was about a foot deep. The baby gasped, gurgled and was still. It did not appear to enter into the spirit of the game at all.

Louis had never seen the baby so quiet before when its mother bathed it. He could not quite make out just what was wrong, but a vague foreboding that he had done something he ought not to came over him. He ran out into the hall and met his mother returning with her arms laden with groceries for the dinner hour.

“Oh, mama!” he cried, “the baby is in the water.”

Mrs. Stock ran up the stairs, but before she got there Mrs. Rose Leiser, a next-door neighbor, had lifted little Harriet out of the tub and laid her on the bed.

Dr. Joseph Strong of 566 Waite avenue was called in and tried artificial respiration. Every time he moved the little arms a jet of water gushed from the baby’s mouth. His efforts were in vain.

When a reporter called at the little home some time later, Mrs. Stock was seated in one room surrounded by a semicircle of sympathizing neighbors, and in the next room Louis, who has sunny Lord Fauntleroy curls and a dimpled face, was down on his knees looking through a photograph album. He looked up at the visitor with steady blue eyes and a smile when he was asked who put the baby in the water.

“Dorey did,” he replied.

“Where is the baby now?”

“I know,” he said. “It’s on the bed. It’s sleeping.”

Then he turned to his photograph album, but when a search was made for little Dorothy, he led the way up the stairs and showed the visitor how to open the door.

Brown-haired Dorothy, with ear-rings in her ears, hid her face behind the skirts of a neighbor. She thought the man who came was going to take her away somewhere, and she hung her head.

“Louis put the baby in the water,” she said. That was all she seemed to know about it. Louis laughed and went back to his album. He could not understand why his mother was crying so in the next room. Wasn’t the baby on the bed just as she had left it?

* * * * *

SHOOTING ACCIDENT

_Chicago Tribune_

Elgin, Ill., Oct. 28--[Special.]--Walter Black, 17 year old son of August Black of 416 Carroll street, came home from a hunting trip at 7 o’clock tonight and stood his single barrel shotgun up in a corner of the kitchen.

“Big bruvver’s a sojer,” lisped Harold Black, 5 years old.

“Naw, there ain’t any war in Elgin,” replied August, aged 11.

Walter went upstairs to change his clothing. Harold went to the corner and attempted to drag the heavy gun along.

“Le’s play sojers,” he said.

“You ain’t big enough to carry the gun,” retorted August. “Let me take it.”

August took the gun, swung it across his shoulder, and marched around the kitchen shouting “Hep! Hep!” with Harold composing the rear guard of the army.

“Now we’re at the war,” sang out August. He turned suddenly and pointed the weapon at Harold, his finger on the trigger. There was a roar and a spit of flame. The muzzle was only a few inches from the head of the younger boy. He fell dead with the whole charge in his head.

Mrs. Black ran to the kitchen and fainted when she saw what had happened. An inquest will be held tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.

* * * * *

NOTE--_The following three stories published in Milwaukee evening papers should be compared as different versions of the same incident in a suburb._

SEARCH FOR LOST CHILD

(1)

_Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin_

WEST ALLIS, Oct. 21.--After 2000 residents of West Allis had spent an entire night searching for Walter, the 18-months’-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong, 5402 Fargo avenue, the little fellow was found sleeping in a coal bin in the basement of the home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, Fifty-fourth and Fargo avenues.

The little lad had wandered away from his father’s yard on Friday afternoon and reached the yard of Mrs. Bitter. While at play near a basement window he probably tumbled through to the coal below.

There he slept soundly until early this morning, when he was found by Mrs. Bitter when she went to the basement to clean out the bin. She picked the child up and carried him in her arms to the home of the distracted mother, who had been waiting and watching all through the night for the return of her baby.

With a cry of joy she seized him and clasped him to her breast and imprinted kiss after kiss upon his face. The father, who, with a party of neighbors, had been searching every corner of the village, was notified and hurried to his home to see his boy.

Walter was playing on Friday afternoon with his brother Willie in the back yard of the home. About 3 o’clock Willie went into the house, and his mother asked where Walter was. The brother told her that he was playing in the yard. She was entertaining visitors and forgot about the lad until after 4 o’clock.

When she went into the yard, the boy was not there. She searched through the neighborhood for a time and then notified her husband, who works at the Allis-Chalmers plant. He organized a searching party and spent the entire night with almost 2000 others in trying to locate the baby.

At first it was feared that the child had been kidnaped, as a man with a young child was seen driving down Fargo avenue shortly after the Strong child was missed by the mother.

(2)

_Milwaukee News_

He was such a little chap--only 18 months old--and when he started out yesterday to take his pedestrian exercises, in which he had not progressed very far, he met with a mishap in tumbling through the basement window of a neighbor’s house into the coal bin.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong, Fiftyfourth and Fargo avenues, called him Bootsie. When Bootsie found himself in a pile of coal, it tickled his childish fancy to learn what beautiful black marks the coal made on his hands.

He tired of playing with the coal, rolled over and went sound asleep. Then the trouble started. An older brother who had been left in the yard to watch the baby, came into the house alone.

“Where’s Bootsie?” the mother asked.

The little fellow shook his head and said he didn’t know. The mother ran to the yard. No Bootsie was in sight. Inquiries were made among the neighbors. Then the news of the mysterious disappearance of Bootsie traveled from mouth to mouth until West Allis became aroused.

Deputy sheriffs got busy; the West Allis police force was brought out; neighbors, relatives and friends to the number of almost 1,000 gathered near the home.

The father came home to supper, learned of his son’s disappearance and was puzzled. Mrs. Strong wept and at times was on the verge of hysteria. Women called and tried to comfort her.

Then a searching party of many hundred started over the territory, “with a fine tooth comb,” the police said, to look for Bootsie.

Ponds in the neighborhood were dragged, and until far into the night, lanterns could be seen bobbing over the fields, going here, there, everywhere, searching for Bootsie Walter Strong, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong.

Then someone brought in a clew. An evil-looking man with a black mustache and smoking a cigarette was seen driving through West Allis about 6 o’clock in the evening. He had a child on his knees.

The child answered the description of Bootsie. He was crying and struggling to get away. The black mustached man leered at people in driving by and disappeared.

The child had been kidnaped! There was no use denying it. Had not the clew been almost conclusive? By midnight the search for Bootsie had been abandoned. Searchers returned home disheartened.

About 5 o’clock this morning Mrs. Johanna Bitter, who lives at 5418 Fargo avenue on property adjoining the Strong home, went to the basement to get some potatoes.

There on top of the coal pile was Bootsie--he of the mysterious disappearance--sound asleep, with his mouth open. The child was carried home by Mrs. Bitter, and when the crowd of last night’s searchers called at the Strong home again this morning, it was met by the wide-eyed Bootsie, munching on a cookie, with evidence of coal dust still lingering in his golden hair.

(3)

_Milwaukee Journal_

If Walter Strong, 18 months, 5402 Fargo-av, West Allis, were to try and make up during the next four years the sleep that he caused to be lost Friday night, he would fail. It would be impossible because 2,000 nights o’ sleep went a-glimmering in the twelve hours of darkness.

But that doesn’t worry Walter Strong, 18 months. Not at all. That sleep didn’t belong to him, but was the property of 2,000 neighbors.

Friday afternoon, when the baby’s father, Ernest Strong, was at work in the Allis-Chalmers plant and his mother, Mrs. Anna Strong, was busy with her household duties, young Walter toddled out into the yard in front of his home. That yard, the street beyond and the highways and byways that Walter could indistinctly see stretching out before him, were to him as were the unexplored new worlds to Columbus.

It was 3 p. m. when Walter began his journey. At 6 p. m. he had not returned. Strong had come home; the mother had noticed that her baby was missing, and a search was begun. At 9 p. m. Walter was still missing. An alarm was spread in the neighborhood.

Then the search began. The good neighbors of West Allis scurried to and fro, listening to stories of kidnaping, following various clews, telling of strange men seen in the neighborhood and, altogether, creating intense excitement. This lasted until 6 a. m. Saturday.

What Baby Walter thought as he toddled out of his yard cannot be told, for Walter is unable to say. He walked up Fargo-av until he observed a peculiar--to him--scene. To most of us it would have been an ordinary cottage at 5418 Fargo-av, the home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, but to Walter there was a great cavern underneath a pile of wood. This cavern had a screen across the mouth, and, peering through, Walter could see a pile of dark stuff. To others that would have been a cellar filled with coal.

Walter was highly interested in his discovery and began to pry at the screen. Ah! the screen moved! It opened! Walter pushed his head inside and gazed about. Then he tumbled in.

Perhaps he cried a little when he fell, but if he did no one heard him. He soon reconciled himself to his imprisonment and began playing with objects at hand. Soon, however, he became sleepy and what makes a better bed than a large pile of potato sacks?

So while his frantic parents and the neighbors were searching for him, Baby Walter slept peacefully within a few hundred feet of home and mother.

Early Saturday Mrs. Bitter, who lives alone, entered her cellar to get some potatoes for breakfast. She carried no light, and when she neared the bin, stumbled over the sacks. The baby cried out. That ended his trip.

When Baby Walter sat on his father’s knee Saturday morning calmly munching a biscuit, he blinked and smiled. The father and mother were busy thanking the neighbors for their interest and assistance.