The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1869-09-30

~ .... nal nj mo. 80.
- - d. - =
men carrying lanterns, hurried to and
fro silent parties Of four, bearing " hat
=, had been u man, einarge1 froM tho
mouth Of the tunnel; blue, curling
flames from, the burning coai-dust
lighted up the whole; and outside, the
black darkness. like = wall, Shut in the
weird, solemn picture.
| At4P. NJ. on Thursday the last body
was taken Out-the ono hundred aud
eighth. Up to thsRast moment many
1 hoped against hope that some one might
be alive; or that, at least, pencil
record, on paper or hoard, would give All
account of the last moments OF the vic
! uIus whose lives went out with their
lamps. But no scrap Of writing has yet
appeared. Of tire dead, over seventy
were Welchmen, twenty-five Irishanen,
alId the rsst ,Ausc ricaus.4 some twelve
-rOr fifteen were young boys. There are
seventy-three widows aud one hundred
aud fifty -four orphans newly made
Several Ut the uead, new -comcrs IN
America, have left families In Wales
and ireland. A littlo building near the
mine Is still filed with collins, waiting for
more of the dead, should more te found.
No record Of the workmen was kept out
side the mine; but on the Saturday
previous there were Us down the shaft.
| Tho number was steadily increasing;
and, had the disaster occurred u week
later, two hundred lives would doubtless
have been sacrificed. In the dwellings
hard by the air Is still full Of wailiuys
tor the dead. One poor woman lost II
nephew, AN uncle, n father, n brother,
| Il l...f
male member OF her family-the hus-
band and three sons who were found
among the G3. After those four bodies,
from which the fashion of this world
had passed away. were gathered for the
last time under her roof, she rushed
from one coffin to another, kissing the
cold lips and stroking the pale checks.
while tears streamed from the oyes of
every looker-on.
About S5O,OW has already been sub
scrbed for the sufferers, and the sum
will probably be doubled. The money
will be held in trust by local commit
tee, and paid ont judiciousiy, week by
week and if the amount proves suifi-
cient, small homesteads will perhaps he
purchased for tho families which are
altogether without means.
"A coroner's inquest is now sitting In
Plymouth. The miners feel that hum
dred Of their comrades have been muir
dcred, and many are in u Mood which
demands vengeance. They arc allowed
to question all the witnesses, and are
bringing out very strongly the fact that
no mans life is safe in a mine which has
only one outlet. 1--WE want the whole
nation," said their spokesman, Oh Sat
ur,iay, "to know that we work in such
mines only because we must work or
al In 1x.
crowded hall responded with approving
stamps.
The men arc right. No special blame
attaches to the owners OF the Avondale,
rs they only followed u system which Is
in vogue in seven-tenths of all the mines;
but the system itself is radically wrong.
1t should be made y penal otiensc to
send workmen into u mine which has
only one channel Of communication
with the surface. A second passage to
admit pure air would have saved every
one Of these wasted lives.
How did the fire originate? Not Mt
the bottom of the shaft. Every practical
miner called before the coroner's jury
gives this as his opinion. It. may have
started-nenr the surface-in either Of
two ways:
/. by accident. The engineer had to
oil the bearings of apump rod in the
ventiIating section, Mt the top. spark
from pipe or Il bit of burning packing
may have fallen upon partition boards
here which had become saturated with
oil, aud so kindied the flames.
= By incendiarism in the old tunnel.
Into the mouth OF this passage, by night,
a man could creep unobserved to the
shaft, and there pour Kerosene over the
heMlock boards, light n connecting fuse,
Liz lAAlfN
fire would break out. There il bitter
feeling against the Delaware, Lack
awanna, and Western Company. Some
one may have wished'to destroy its prop
erty; aud-unwilling to fire the shaft by
night, as that would involve the risk or
tireing the adjacent houses OF the miners,
and destroy litc--set a slow match, cX-
pecting the fire to break out just after
daylight, a,rd before the men went down
the shaft. If any one familiar with
mines arranged the fire intending To
have it break out when it did, then he
simply intended to murder every man
in tie Avondaie. This theory seems
too dark to be entertained; but deep
seated bitterness was felt and expressed
against the miners who had gone to
work without obtaining the terms de-
manded in the strike, and such All act
would be- no more tien iish than tile
common one Of placing obstructions
upon u railway track. Ii there lives u
man with all these murders upon his
I head, he n,,tst, sooner or later, do sone-
! thing to excite suspicion and scrutiny,
| and SO lay bare his dread secret. In the
very nature Of the case, t.p, he must
! have had confederatcs, which would in
crease the chances of detection. Thus
! far. however, nothing is developed eN-
cept a probability that tile fire originated
! at or above the mouth Of the tunnel, and
grave reason for the suspicion that it
was the work Of All incediary.