The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1874-05-12

A TnuE SroRY.-Two or three weeks
ago, says the New York 1riJune, an ac-
cdent did not occur near Scranton, Penn. (;
the newspapers missed sensational hor-
ror ; and dozen men, Instead Of being
hurled into eternity without having time
to breathe prayer, walked quietly home
to their dinners, quite unconscious that
Death had had them by the throats. 1t
might, after all, be worth our while 10
look into the cause 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 placed in the hands Of a Scotch
Irishman, an ordinary fellow enough
The cable necessarily Of great weight aud
thickness, passes through the roof Of a
slightly bull; 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 he.
roic rapture Of resolve, the ascending car
1oaded with coal) at one end Of the cable
broke, and fell crashing into the dark
shaft, to be shattered into thousand
fragments. lie knew that in the next
minute the cable,reeased iiom the strain,
would fly back and fall with crushing
weight on the ricke,y beams and boards
if he did not escape from the shed. But
# he took his hand from the lever, the de-
scending 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 a
boy in the back Of the shed; the man
motioned to him with his head to 90 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 the delay of but breath
of time ; but it was enough. The car
grated with a jar against the ground far
below its occupants stepped leisurely
ont, 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 reward jar 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 the
unknown. unmeasured resources Of cour.
age and herosm and unilinching integri
ty 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 hal
been put into the world for its long voy'
age; how many Of tho women are gra.
cious and finely natured how many mer
respond promptly to the call of honesty
or duty or even sell.sacrice because il
is the simple AMI uat1ral thing for then
to do so.
We will congratulate ourselves, then
not that this class can boast one sucl
brave follow as this Scotch Irish engineer
but that, like King Harry over Percy
grave, we believe that it "has thousau'
such as he "