The Daily Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Or.) 1876-1883, 1882-06-16
A Hero.

to rescue their fellows, the heroism
of Jack Vandeusen, the miner who
made his way alone TO the impris-
oned miners to tell them of the ef-
forts being made, of the relief that
awaited them, is deserving of more
than passing mention. Few, says
the San Jose Mercury, who read
the short report of this perform
ance will at all appreciate either
the perils hazarded or the heroism
that grappled with them.
One must at least have been
through these tunnels and drifts,
when the mines were in their hol-
liday attire, when the mighty genii
that science has invoked holds the
demons of these cavernous depths
in check, to even imagine the
situation when scalding waters and
poisonous vapors, breaking their
bounds and bursting their chains,
sweep and swell through these
gloomy chasms.
The world never wearies OF de-
scribing the fierce charge, The
deadly strife of the battle field
where in the bright sunlight man
struggles with man for the mastery.
The Old Guard at Waterloo, the
charge of the Six Hundred" has
been again and again told in po-
etry and prose; but no man who
fought at Waterloo, no trooper
who followed Cardigan at Balak-
lava, either in the horrors that sur.
rounded, the dangers that attended,
or the purpose to be accomplished,
can compare with the achievement
OF this Comstock miner.
II was over two thousand feet
below the surface Of the earth
and fourteen hundred feet from
this depth that his journey was to
be made. It WAS through waters
breast high and scalding hot. Ii
was through vapors, breath OF
which was death. His guard an
apparatus that might fail him at
any instant. His pathway, a trench
bestrewn with floating timbers-
seething, Shiny and horrid-dan
gers in every form abont him; in a
darkness that might be felt: where
to stumble was to perish, to halt
was to die. Through fourteen hun
dred feet of all this he made his
lonely way. He knew the full
measure of his danger, for the two
who had essayed that fearful Jour
ney he knew must have perished,
and the one who had but passed
the the threshold had returned a
raving madman.
Upon every hand there was
death, and death in its most revolt
ing forms. Death in the seething,
scalding waters that surged about
him; in the poisonous vapors that
enveloped him. Death in the
corpses that he well knew were
floating at his feet. Death and
dead men, perhaps, TO greet him
should he reach the prison house
of his fellows. IL was with all
this about aud before him that
Fandeusen started upon this
dreaded expedition.
No warrior upon the bloodiest
battle field, no soldier leading a
forlorn hope ever met danger so
beset with horrors, or faced death
with such desperate odds against
himself.
The price for which all this WAS
risked--not fortune, nor fame, nor
glory-but the hope, slight to all
others as gossamer, that he might.
at all this risk, with all this sacri-
fee, restore to their homes his i'm
periled comrades.
There are Pantheons in which
the rulers of men will be ever
apotheosized there are pedestais
20 be crowned with the statutes
alike of the butchers and the
5enefactors of men-there are
poems and songs that for all time
will commemorate the deeds of
valor of devotion, and Of sacrifice;
but when real heroism shall be
honored-the. true hero shall be
crowned-first among the foremost
shall be found the Comstock miner
Jack Vandeusen.