The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-02-29
LIFE IN A CITY'S SEWERS.
MAN WHO HAS SPENT MUCH OF
HIS LIFE UNDERGROUND.
The Many Strange Things I've Has
Encountered i'm the sewers Of
PhiIadeIphia-A Strange CAPTURE.

PhiIadcIphia-AS Strange Capture.
Jerry Barns has been in the employ of
some one of the Philadelphia highway
department contractors for thirty of his
sixty years. During this time he has
been engaged almost exclusively in the
repair of sewers At least one quarter of
his life has been spent under the cobble-
stones. Through long associstion with
things oozy and rcptiian Jerry has gained
himself somewhat oozy and reptilian
aspect. His eyes are bleared. They
look closely down each side of his nose
which is long and seems to overlap his
retreating chin. There were traces of
sewer mud on the bottoms of his trousers
as he stood IN the courtyard of the pub
lie buildings. Perhaps there was an at
mosphere of sewer dampness about him.
Perhaps his appearance only suggested it,
Jerry's life having been spent in
sewers, Jerry idea is that great sewer is
the noblest of earthly creations. His life
is dream of sewers. When the great
Partisan sewers were exploited and illus
trated with pictures of parties boating
through them and later on of Gardes
Mobile Watching with fixed bayonets,
the advent of Prussian spies and jabbing
for fun and fricassee the sewer rats,
Jerry's eyes stuck out with delight,
envy and incredulity. Lately the desire of
his life has been to visit the great new
Boston sewers.
Jerry has met and vanquished strange
foes in the substrata. He is Shiny st.
George with great many dragons. The
lesser of these, the small fry of blind
nd fbnt ho do l,r
in underground rambes he cares little
for, save when a troop of the latter
grow bold enough, as they did last
fall, to drive him up Delaware avenue
manhole. He has had one experience,
however, which he told recently tor
the thousandth time, perhaps.
Back in 80 when it happened, the
Callowhill street sewer was clogged in a
nasty bend near Seventh street Resi-
dents of the neighborhood told strange
stories of the noises that came up through
the waste-pipes, and all romantic minds
imagined the presence of an escaped
prisoner in the sewer. That there was
something strange in the place was evil
dent to the *orkmen who opened the
trap for Jerry to go down. Most of the
noise was a splashing and stopping The
escaped prisoner idea gained ground
Though no one said Jerry, could
tell where he'd escaped from, unless it
was from the morgue at the foot of
Noble street"
Jerry went down with his candle. He
came back without it.
g | threw the dip into the things Jaws
and climbed up in a hurry" he said.
How to get the alligator, for such it was,
out of the sewer was the next question.
Some one thought of angling for it
with roast of beef, but Jerry knew that
the monster must have grown up in the
place and that he would therefore be blind.
Finally the bright idea occurred that
residence in a sewer ought not to destroy
the sense of smell if it did that of sight
A very rank piece of meat was accord
ingly let down.
Whether he smelled that or not 1
don't KNOW" said Jerry, "but after I'd
laid for him for about two hours with a
gun, he struggled under the manhole
and popped him. lie was about half
grown. The news spread all over the
town, and pretty soon along came sea-
faring man with fire in his eye SEE he,
'what'd We kill my alligator for2n
1t turned out that the sailor chap
lived down near the foot of Willow
street and had a lot of young alligators
that he'd brought from Florida in "a tub
in his backyard. This one escaped and
came up the sewer likn' the slime, |
s'pose, and lookin' for pickaninnies
s'pose he lived on lizards Anyway,
this sailor man was mad, and said that
if we'd sent for him he'd coaxed the
brute up the man hole"
Jerry rid the ncighborhood of Seven
teenth and Spring Garden streets once of
worse pest than an alligator. This was
polecat that had been depreciating val
liable property in the neghborhood for
about month in the summer of 1880
He lived in the sewer and came out of an
inlet at night
Il croakcd him just as he stuck his
nose into the moonlight one evening, ~
said Jerry.
The sewer rats are said to be great
friends of Jerry. In the heavy sewer
freshet of September 1889, hundreds of
these animals were drowned Contractor
Armstrong says that Jerry buried them
all in Delaware mud, and he has never
been the same man since -PhiL,delDhia
Times.