Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-04-30
A True Story.

TwooR three weeks ago an accident
did not occur near Scranton, Pa; the
newspapers missed a sensational horror :;
and dozen men, instead of being hurled
into eternity without time to breathe a
prayer, walked quietly home to their din
ners quite unconscious that death had had
them by the throats. 1t might, after all
ue worth our while to look into the cause
of the loss of this tragedy to the world f;
we should have been keen enough to I'M
earth the guilty party if it had occurred.
The facts are briefly these:
In the largest anthracite coal mime in
the State, the care OF the engine 10y which
the cars for passengers are lowered and
hOisted is placed in the hands of a Scotch
Irishman, an ordinary fellow enough.
The cable, necessarily of great weight
and thickness, passes through the roof of
slightly-built shed under which he
stands. One morning, as the man stood
smoking his pipe, his hand apon the
lever, his mind very probably busy with
his dinner, and assuredly not wrought up
by any heroic rupture of resolve, the
ascending arc Qoaded with coaD,
at one end of the cable, broke,
and fell crashing into the dark
shaft, to be shattered into thousand
liz huCW IhdL IA Vic uCAb
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 was absolutely certain
if he did not escape from the shed. But
if he took his hand from the lever the
descending car, full of men, must fall 100
or 300 feet. He had but one instant to
face his death and theirs, and TO choose
between them. There was a boy in the
back Of the shed; the man m0Gioned to
him with his head to go out. Then he
frightened his hand on the lever. The
loosened cable struck and caught some
where below against the side of the shaft.
Surely God meant it should so strike! 1t
was the delay of but a breath of time; but
it was enough. The car grated with Jar
against the ground far below; its occu-
pants 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 mars name, and
should scarcely need to publish it if we
did. Fame or reward jar somehow against
the deed itself There is a wholesome
tonic for all of us IN the certainty, which
is forced upon us now and then, of the un-
known, unmeasured resources of courage
and heroism and unffinching 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 a crew has been put
into the world for its long voyage; how
many of the women are gracious and fine
ly natured; how many men respond
promptly to the call of honesty, or duty,
or even selfsacrifice, 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 hen z Tribune.