Chapter 550: of the Acts of 1907, provides that the (1)

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.