Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-05-03

the point which was at issue came finally
before the United States District Cur.
that welf-known and inscriptions parti-
Fan Judge Underwood presiding. From
his decision much was hoped in Radical
| quarters. If the enabling act were de-
clared unconstitutional, tn, the military
appointees throughout the State would
hold over, and by their services much
would be accomplished toward the cleo
ton of full Congressional delegation of
Radicals from Virginia this fail. As it
happened, however, Chief Justice Chase,
and not Judge Underwood, rendered the
decision in the Federal Court, and as that
decision was to remit the point at i he,
being a State question, to the State Court,
we come to the reason of the unusual as
senblage in the Virginia Court of Ap
peals at Riehmondon Wednesday last.
The question virtually at issue being
whether Virginia should remain under its
present form of government, or be hand
ell over anew to the camp followers and
harpies of reconstruction, it can be read
lily seen that there must have been an In
tense degree of interest, felt as to the de- |
cision. = t5 -l'al al-s-.' a.-ii saaa
| WAITING FOE THE VERDICT.
The arguments being all in, there but |
remained for the Court to pronounce |
| judgment, and, it being generally under |
stood that the decision was ready, all the /
| chief parties litigant, the opposing coun- |
sci, leading citizens, full representation
of the prcss and a number of State off |
GERS were present. Many others were in /
attendance, but failed to obtain admission /
to the courtroom, which, from its limited
size, could barely accommodate the most
prominent visitors, and thus it was that
the whole upper floor of the Capitol, as
one may say, was throDged-the court
room proper with distinguished persons,
and the doorway and gallery outside with
those of lesser note. To use military |
simile, those in the room proper were
picked men, those outside the rank and |
file, and hence it is that almost every one
killed or wounded by the fall of the |
courtroom floor and ceiling was man
of mark.
Shortly after II A. NJ, and when the
court waited but the presence of one of
the judges to complete tho bench and
enter on proceedings, sharp crack was
heard in the center of the floor, then an
other, then the floor began to sink, slowly
at first, but before one man in twenty
could escape, down, down it went with |
thunderous crash into the hall of the |
House of Delegates below, taking with it |
all who had filled the centre of the room, |
and steering so close up towards the
Judges that, while the reporters on the |
side of their table next to the bench were
saved, one, DR.. Brock, of the Richmond |
Enquirer and Examiner, who sat on |
the outer side, was carried off and killed. |
Scarcely had the dust started to rise from !
this first fracture before the rest of the |
floor, taking in the gallery with its throng-
ing occupants, also fell, the pause being
scarcely that of second, and then, upon |
the struggling, cOmmingled mass below,
fell in the walls BID and CD in the dia
gram, tearing with them the ceiling.
THE VICTIMS.
So sudden, so awful, So thorough a
destruction by the fall of an edifice has
perhaps never before been recorded in our |
day. Of the scarce 300 persons who
packed the small courtroom SO were
killed outright, 2 have since died and
116 were more or less seriously wounded |
making in all considerably over half of
all in the room killed or wounded. |
Among the dead ere brother of General |
Schofield, a United States Deputy Mar
shall; an ex-COnfederate General, General
Wilcox; Patrick Henry Aylett, great
grandson of Patrick Henry; f Burn |
ham, of Syracuse; w E Randolph, of !
New York; Samuel Eaton, of Boston;
and several members, white and black,
of the Virginia Legislature. Among the |
wounded, also are men from all parts of
the country, and on either side in the late /;
civil war, thus rendering this most melan- {
choly occurrence one that will carry sor- {
row and mourning into many parts of
the Union.
THE RICHMOND TIIEATEE.
As for Richmond, to leave out of view
in her history the days of the war when
the guns Numbered at her gates and thou
sands of wounded were throDged into her
hospitals, and the fire swept her chief
streets at last, there is nothing in her
records like this awful calamity, unless it
be the destruction of the Richmond |
theater by fire on the night of the 26th of
December, 1911. Seventy people then
persisted in the flames, among them the {
Governor of the State, and ON the spot | I
where so terrible an accident occurred,
there is now, and has been for many years,
a church. In the holiday time-that
Christmas season, so punctiliously OBJ
served as period of merry-making in
Virginia-in the night, and when there
was no thought of business, but only of
joy, the fire of 1911 came, and in some of
its aspects, perhaps that was the greatest
of Richmond's domestic disasters. But
that was long ago, and is only brought to
mind by this latest and terrible affliction |
which has befallen the city.