New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-04
A TRNE STORY.

Two or three weeks ago an accident did not
occur near Scranton, Penn. the newspapers
missed a sensational horror; and dozen men.
instead of being hurled into eternity without
time to breathe prayer, walked quietly homo
to their dinners, quite unconscious that Death
had had them by the tbroats. 1t might after
all, be worth our while to look into the cause
Of the loss of this tragedy to the world; we
should have been keen enough to unearth tho
guilty party if it had occurred. The facts arc
briefly these:
In the largest anthracite coal mine in
the State, the care of the engine by which
the cars for passengers are lowered and
hosted is placed in the hands of a Scotch
freshman, an ordinary fellow enough. The
cable, necessarily of great weight and thick
ness, passes through the roof of slightly
built shed under which he stands. One morn
ing, as the man stood smoking his pipe,
his hand upon tho lever, his mind very
probably busy with his dinner, and as
suredy not wrought up to any heroic
RAPTURE of resolve, the ascending car
Qoaded with coaD at one end Of the cable,
broke, and fell crashing into the dark shaft,
to be shattered into q thousand Fragments.
He knew that in the next minute the cable.
released from the strain, would fly back and
fall with crushing weight on the rickety
beams and boards of the roof. Death waa
absolutely certain il he did not escape from
the shed. But if he took his hand from the
lever, the descending car, full OF men, must
fall one OF two hundred feet. He had but
ono instant to face his death and theirs, and
to choose between them. There was boy in
the back of the shed: the man mo-
toned to him with his head TO go
out. Then he tightened his hold on the
lever. The lOosened cable struck and
caught somewhere below against the side OF
the shaft. Surely God meant it should so
strike! 1t was tho delay of but breath OF
time; but it was enough. The car grated
with jar against the ground far below: It's
| occupants stepped leisurely out, while the man
who had saved them above, threw himself
| from under the shed, just as its roof, beams
pulley and all, crashed down on the spot
| where he had been standing.
| We do not know the mans name, and should
scarcely need to publish it if we did. Fame or re-
ward lar somehow against the deed itself. There
is wholesome tonic for all OF us IN the certainty
which is forced upon US now and then. OF tho
| unknown, unmeasured resources of courage
and heroism and unhinching integrity to duty
which we possess among what we choose to
call the mass of the people. 1t is, after all,
| only when man reaches the certainties OF
! middle age that he Is not surprised every new
day by the knowledge of how admirable
crew has been put into the world for its long
voyage; how many of the women are gracious
| and finely natured; how many men respond
promptly to tho call of honesty or duty or
even self-sacrifce because it is the simple and
natural thing for them to do so.
We will congratulate ourselves, then, not
that his class can boast one such brave fellow
as this Scotch-Irish engineer. but that, like
King Harry over Percy's grave, we believe
that it "has thousand such as he"