The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-04-10
TRUE HEROISM AT THE PITS
MOUTH.
IN. Y. Herald Editor al, April Al

Two or three weeks ago an accident did
not occur near Scranton, Penn; the news
papers missed sensational horror; and a
dozen men. instead of being hurried into
eternity without time to breathe prayer,
walked quietly home to their dinners, quite
unconscious that death had had them by the
threats. 1t might, after al, be worth our
while to look into the canse of the loss Of
this tragedy to the world; we should have
been keen enough to unearth the guilty
party If it had occurred. The facts are
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 hoisted
is paced in the hands of cl-Irishman,
an ordinary fellow enough
| The cable, necessarily of great weight
and thickness, passes through the roof of a
slightly built shed under which he stands.
One morning, as the man stood smoking
his pipe, his hand upon the lever, his mind
very probably busy with his dinner, and
assuredly not wrought up to any heroic
(loaded with cOal) at one end of the cable
broke and fell crashing into the dark shaft,
to be shattered into thousand fragments.
He knew that in the next minute the cable,
released from the strain, would fly back
and fall with crushing weight Oh the rick
ETY. beams and boards of the roof. Death
was absolutely certain if he did not escape
from the she'd But if he took his hand
from the lever, the descending car, full Of
men, must fall one or two hundred feet.
He had but one instant to face his death
and theirs, and to choose between them
There was boy in the back of the shed +;
the man motoned t, him with his head to
90 out. Then he frightened 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 the delay of but a breath
of time; but it was enough. The car grated
with jar against the ground far below; its
occupants stepped leisnrely out, while the
man who had saved them above threw him
self 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, anC
should scarcely need to publish it if we did
Fame or reward jar somehow against thu
deed itself There is wholesome tonic fO
all of us in the certainty, which is forcet
upon us now and then, of the unknown, un
measured resources of courage and heroisn
and unflinching integrity to duty which WI
possess among what we choose to call TIN
mass of the people 1t is. after all, Onl,
when man reaches the certainties of mid
die age that he is not surprised every new
day by the knowledge of how admirable
crew has been put into the world for its lon;
voyage: how many of the women are gra
cions and finely natnred; how many mel
respond promptly to the call of honesty 0
duty, or even selfsacrifice, because it is tn
simple and natural thing for them to do.
We will congratulate ourselves, then, NO
that his class can boast one such brave fel
low as this Scotch Irish engineer, but that
like KING Harry over Percy's grave, we be
lieve that it " has a thousand such as he"
A Kentucky horse jockey has hit upon
rubber tube running from the bit to til
seat of the sulky, where there is attached
rubber bag for water or spirits, from whc
the trotter can drink refreshment on hi
track without pansing. This isn't much {
an improvement on the old-fashiOne
pocEaf. naak