St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-11-18
Our New York Letter.

New YORK, November IA, 1881.
Well The elections over, and the
world still wags, and things keep NOV
ing and men come and go, and so on,
as suppose they will forever. Among
others to go are our late international
guests, the descendants of the French
and German heroes who helped Wash
ington to bounce John Bull. The way
they went was characteristic. When
the French were Officially disbanded,"
their party fell to pieces like piece of
pastry, and the sparkling fragments
dubbed away in all directions like
beads of the national champagne. The
Germans, on the contrary, solicited
land liquefied in concert) as the time
for departure drew nigh, and wound
up their American experiences by Il
relapse into a purely TeutOnic enter
tainment by way of a farewell. The
Arion and Liederkranz singing socie-
ties gave them joint "COmmers," and
a high old time they had! Six hundred
sturdy Germans, full of fun, beer, mu-
sic and affection which showed itself in
loving hugs and kisses when some pc
culiarly touching song was sung, quaf-
fling lager at swimming tables, on
which ever and anon they performed
the "salamander," beginning with IA
tap tap-tap with their 600 glasses, and
increasing the speed and force till, at "a
signal, 600 mighty arms flew high in
air and brought down 600 glasses with
600 "HOcksn and a thunderOus crash
that shook the neighbOrhOOd and made
people think of earthquakes.
Talk of earthquakes, what should
we do with our sky-piercing houses
and stores should such a tremble of
even the faintest variety occur? We
may form some idea from the way our
houses fall to pieces from their own
weight after longer or shorter exist
ence. A peculiarly distressing case in
point happened this week, A large
uOuSt Ill It lltu avenue
fell like a house of cards without the
slightest immediate warning, though of
course cracks in the walls had been no.
ticed for some time, and should have
been accepted as signs of disaster, and
crushed some thirty people, nine of
whom were killed outright. The house
was an old one, and the scoundrel who
built it, and the scoundrel who inherit
ed it, and the other scOundrels who
had a finger in the pie, are probably
gone where such people are provided
for, on the other side of Jordan. 1t
was the merest shell, and the last
strand that shattered it was probably
nothing more than the rumble of some
truck in the street. HerOism fioated
ont nObly on the occasion. In full
view of 20, 900 spectators, who crowded
every possible point of sight, the fire
men and others burrOwed at imminent
risk of their own lives for hours under
the lettering fragments of walls. One
poor woman was reached after seven
hours of much labor. A dead child was
in her arms. Three others had been
found dead. In physical agony she
forgot herself in sOlicitude for her fam
lily and lived so long in hopes of meet
ing them, for the firemen, with merci-
full intent, deliberately lied to her about
their safety. She died a few hours
after extrication, and her husband, a
shattered cripple, is now the sole sur
vivor of happy family.
They say now that the CrOton Aque-
duct is in danger, being overdriven, as
it were, with an enormous pressure in
the immense pipes, which are kept con-
stantly full instead of somewhere about
half way up, as intended by the de-
signers. 1t certainly is leaking in
dozens of places, and leaks may ex-