The daily gazette., 1877-01-10
The Ashtabuia Horror.
a STARTLING STORYTELLING THE RES
POSSIBILITY.

POSSIBILITY.
B. Is. Lyons, a survivor of the railroad
accident, blames the company very Sc
verely. He said that within few min
utes after the disaster one steam fire
engine and two hand engines were at the
spot, and there was abundance Of water
at hand. Furthermore, half way up the
bank was an engine house: with an en-
gine used to pump water from the river
| into the railroad company's tanks. In the
engine house were 500 feet of hose, and
altogether about 5000 feet of hose were
near enough at hand to be avilable in ex-
| tinguishing the fire. But no attempt was
made to put these appliances into USE
Mr.. Lyons said that it was the opinion
of those with whom he conversed that
not more than six persons would have
been burned beyond recognition if water
had been thrown on the fire. With regard
to the authority which prevented the use
of the engines and hose, Mr.. Lyons said
| that he had what seemed to him ample
evidence that the railroad officials were
responsible. He himself heard after the
disaster.that dispatch had been received
| from railroad headquarters ordering that
| no water should be thrown upon the
wreck, ''to the effect that all should sink
| into oblivion" Mr.. Lyons quoted this
| in the hearing ofa fireman, who at once
said, "those are the very words of dis
patch received by Superintendent Strong"
and the assertion was afterward corro-
borated by other firemen, who gave their
names and addresses to Mr.. Lyons re-
marked that it was an awful thought that
the railroad officials would deliberately
| plan not to save life, for the pecuniary
advantage of the road, and yet one could
not help remembering that the Lake
Shore company would not get insurance
money for cars smashed, while they would
get it if cars were burned, and that, fur
thermore, by the Ohio state law they
were required to pay $4,000 damages for
deaths caused by their fault, while dam
ages for injuries caused were likely to
range considerably higher, at the discre-
| ton of jury.
Mr.. Lyons said that it was at least GER
tain that those who arrived at the scene
of the disaster the same evening urged
that water should be thrown on the burn
ing cars, and that Mr.. Strong and Mayor
Hepburn of Ashtabula, who was civil
engineer in the employ of the road, OBJ
jected, refusing to allow the firemen to
make use of their engines. Mr.. Lyons
thought it singular that the chief of the
fire department did not overrule these
directions. He had always supposed that
fire departments possessed, in case of
fire, the authority to act upon their own
discretion.
Again, there had been gross misstate
ment of the number of passengers Oh
the train. Conductor Hem said shortly be-
fore the accident that there were 100 per-
SONS on the train. After the disaster he
placed the number considerably lower,
while in the fact there were many more
than 100 on board. From the Palatine
all were taken out alive; from the Yoko-
hama one man was taken out; from the
City of Buffalo none were taken out at
all from the day coach two men were
Iextrcated alive, and from the second day
coach Mr.. Lyons did not know if any
were saved; from the smoking car con-
siderable number were taken out alive.
All those rescued and able to discuss the
matter spent some little time in COM
pairing notes and estimating the number
of passengers in each car; Mr.. Lyons
said this had been done carefully and the
result had not been exaggerated in the
slightest degree. They made total 226
passengers on board at the time OF the
disaster, not counting 20 or % children.