Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1883-05-31
NEWS BY MAIL,
THE GREAT BRIDGE DISASTER.

Some Further Psrtlculars-O Calamity and
Crime-The General Observance Of
Decoration Day.
On the first page of to-day's paper will
be found an extended and graphic account
of the terrible disaster or the New York
and Brooklyn bridge, yesterday, by which
dozen lives were lost. The special and
detailed reports in the New York papers
abound In most horrible and sickening de-
tails, according to which the disaster was
one of the most terrible of modern occur
renee.
One of the regular staff Of the World,
who had been in Brooklyn to attend the
Decoration ceremonies, was on the bridge
returning to Now York, and this side of
the New York anchorage, when the acci-
dent occurred.
He says 81 was about twenty feet
from the fatal spot, patiently floating
along with the westward stream. The
whole structure buzzed with laughter and
JoviaI sounds. never saw a more good
humored crowd in my life. Once in
while some nervous, hysterical woman
would utter little shrek as some body
crowded her or stepped on her dress.
But there was no quarreling and no up
roar.
Gail at once, as reached the middle of
the platform, strange, mysterious thrill
seemed to 60 throug h the the crowd like
an electric shock. 1t started some dis.
tance ahead of me and was sensible of
its running past me far back into the ranks
which followed. 1t was sensation equally
compounded of the jar Of a stopping train
when the cars transmit their arrest to one
another and of the sight Of field of grain
when sudden flow of wind bends it,
almost instantaneously, in Successive rip
pies.
ut was not stoppage, but vague
hssitati0n for the fraction of a second. l
suppose now that it was tho moment the
first person fell upon the stairs, and the
next corners shrunk hairs breadth from
following him.
How easily one can theoriZe now, but
with what frightful speed tho appointed
doom flashed to it's accomplishment The
hesitation, so brief and so vague as to be
almost imperceptible, instantly changed
to a rush, as if some little trivial barrier
had given way and the flood ran all the
fiercer for having been momentarily re-
strained. None of us knew why we moved
SO much faster, but the dullest of us must
have been sensible of the change.
Ino Cry OF tn0 Dy1nSs
"All of a sudden there went up to
heaven such cry as no description of
mine can do justice to. 1t echoed like the
shrek Of bugle and it acted like signal.
In an instant there came mighty surge
behind us which literally took us off our
feet. Men recovering from the shock
found themselves squeezedbDut of breath
ing--power. Women caught, some of them
half turned round, filed tho air with
piercing screams. Some of us clutched at
the rails, as men on the edge of Niagara
burst their veins grasping friendly ropes.
Even tho children were suffused with the
sense OF impending horror, like birds in
the lull of a thunder storm. sec now,
like the faces of a dream, when one is in a
sick bod, the tiers Of awe stricken faces,
and hear, even now, the shrieks of the
suffOcating and the crushed behind me and
before me.
"Ahead of us there was even more
hideous work going On. saw umbrellas,
hats and canes leap into the air above the
serried heads in front Of us like the IT,
regular spouting of some strange fountain.
This lasted perhaps minute, but at the
time it looked like a continuous spectacle,
and was SO odd that it fascinated me.
"But the sounds were infinitely more
frightful than the sight. I pray I may
never again listen again to such volume
of human VOC. There were shrill cries
suddenly arrested, coarse yells that were
muff1ed ia on instant. Our senses proter-
naturally sharpened heard death rattles
ahead of us as clearly as tho shlieks of
women whirled to the deadly edge of the
platform.
To the Rescue
"All at once as my senses were giving |
way and the roar in my ears began to !
grow faint, half a dozen men, fighting |
like DEVILS got to the spot. How they |
it cannot understand. Inever
saw such fury as they showed-cOnsider
ate fury as it turned Ont to be. They
were police detectives, SO l learnt, who,
having first arragned for diversion OF |
the crowd approaching forom New York
to the carriage ways, and having secured
tapping - Tor the other current in the
other wagon track, headed off the CON-
and perishing streams.
"The relief was felt in about a minute.
Officers overhead shouted directions where
to 60, and just before myself and my
elbow-to elbow neighbors were on the
verge of tho death trap the crowd had
melted behind us, and in spite of the
awful spectacle before our eyes we took
breath after breath joyfully.
"But that scene-f can never forget it.
Men and women were so tangled up in it
there was no distinguishing them. The
lower strata were silent in death. The
upper were in the agony of dying. Nut
'ered prayers, deep, horrifying greans,
'he hideous rattling noises in closing
;hroats, the sob Of bursting chests, pro
ound breathing that sounded like a snore
Il cannot give even the shadow of an idea
If this devils chorus
Soldiers at Work.
Meantime twenty or thirty men, some
II them in tho uniform of the Twelfth