The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-09-08


and turned upon her side to die.
The city was soon alive and stirring.
Hospitals and private houses were alike
thrown open to the unfortunate suf-
ferers, whose appalling state no pen can
picture.
DIR. Armstrong had early repaired to
the scene of suffering. Dead and
wounded bodies were hurried to the
morgue, and his daughter and myself
throughout that awful night worked
with him and hundreds of others in the
effort to alleviate the horrors of the
awful calamity.
The grey of the morning had come
before the scene Of hustle and confusion
began to subside.
Mrs. Lewis and myself We're busy in
one of the hospital wards, and l, faint
from the sight of mangled bodies and
Mortified by screams of raving sufferers,
was almost ready TO retreat, when DIR.
Armstrong came to US with a haggard
face and fiurried air that startled us.
"There's work for you at home, Ju-
dith ~ said he, tenderly. "God help
you to endure itr'
"What ~ answered. as there any
thing the matter with my children ?''
and great lump rose in my throat that
choked me almost to suffocatiOn.
''No, my poor child, not that. Come
on !" and we went out TO the waiting
carriage and were whirled rapidly away
to the Doctors mansion.
In one Of the elegant parlors, upon a
cot bedstead, lay a moaning, breath
ing mass of mangled humanity, and as
we entered could hear the object speak
my name in pleading, wailing tones.
"For the love of Heaven tell me who
this is and what this meansr' l said,
and kneeling reverently beside the bed,
/ looked eagerly for lineament or fea-
ture by which to recognize the man.
as this you, JUDITH" asked the
frightful object, whose every trace of
human features was obliterated by the
burning steam, and whose boiled and
mangled flesh lay in great hideous rolls
upon his face, arms and breast.
ayes, my name is Judith; but in the
name of Heaven tell me who you are ~
was my anxious exclamation.
The mangled arms tossed in the air,
the victim screamed with pain and
wandered of in incoherent mutterings.
"For Heavens sake, Doctor explain
this mystery, or shall die ~ / walled.
"God help you, Judith 1t is the
father of your children and the husband
of your life ~
The words of the physician nerved
me. Arising from my kneeling position
beside the couch ordered my children
aroused and hurried away to boarding
house. l could not bear to cloud their
young and tender lives by sight of
their poor father as l then beheld him.
My friends quickly caught my mean
ing, and the children Were borne away
with the promise that mother would
JOIN them AT noon.
The Doctor administered opiates to
soothe the weary sufferer; counsel was
called, and every trial that human skill
could invent was made to save him.
but he died and gave no further sign.
Carefully attendants composed the
mangled limbs, and when the unfortun-
ate remains were ready for interment |
robed myself in heavy black and went TO
convey the tidings to my waiting chill
dren.
Their sorrow and lamentations were
pitiful, and they returned with me to
the chamber of death with a spirit of
awe and bereavement. 1 explained to
them that we could not let them see
their fathers face because of its disfig-
urement, and the poor children wept
and walled his death, unconscious of his
crime, which it seemed to me that
Providence had expiated by his awful
death.
The simple rites of burial over, my
life settled i'm the same routine as be-
fore, only that the suspense about the
of John was gone. The
fear that he would some day /
1e arraigned for forgery, and thus blight
he lives of my innocent children, no
Onger haunted me.
TO be eontinued.i