The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-05-05
THOUGHTS OF DYING MEN
New York Tribune.

in the Schuylkill coal region I had occasion to visit several of the mining towns. In one of them enjoyed the hospitality of an intelligent miner who came to America twenty years ago from Saxony, where he had worked in the mines. He left that country soon after the occurrence of one of the most terrible colliery dis asters on record, by which a large number of miners lost their lives. He was one of the force of miners who volunteered to enter the dangerous depths of the exploded mine for the purpose of attempting the rescue of such victims of the disaster as might possibly have survived the explosion itself but were barricaded from es- cape by walls of fallen coal between them and the mouth of the mine. There had been large number of such victims, as the rescuing party found too late, the Instructions between them and the doomed men having been too great to permit ofremoval in time to save them from lingering and horrible death. Of that melan- choly catastrophe my miner friend has preserved most remarkable re- cord in series of manuscript copies, translated into English, of messages written to their friends by such of the doomed Saxon miners as were not killed outright by the explosion, but were among those who were preserved for the no less sure and more terrible death by suffocation, as the poisoned gases slowly destroyed the pure air that remained in the mine. These messages were found in note- books and on scraps of paper on the dead bodies of the poor men when they were at last recovered. These last messages from the dead certainly have DO parallel in heart touching pathos. Nowhere, in history or romance, is such scene depicted as is shown by these simple messages-a picture of men, face to face with death, awaiting it's coming with g calmness and resig- nation which only the noblest and strongest hearts could summon. Not one word in the whole record reveals a feeling of bitterness against the fate they could not avert. There is an in- tensity of pathos in some of the lines scrawled by these death besieged men in the gloom of their narrow prison. For instance, one of them, a miner named Reiche, held in his hand when his dead body was found scrap of paper on which was scrawled these words:
 "DEAR SISTER Meyer, in the village, owes me 10 thalers: IL is yours. l hope my face will not be distorted when they find us: might have been better to you. JanetZ for gives me. Good-b bye"
 Reiche, as my old miner friend told me, having the history of all these poor men still fresh in his mind, was a severe man, his only relative being a sister, young and pretty girl named Rika, who had charge of her brothers household. She was loved by young miner named Janetz, and had com- manded all communications between them to cease. Janetz was one of the victims of the mine disaster. Pinned to his blackened coat when his body was found, lying near that of Reiche, was a leaf from his note book, on which he. had written this:
 "DARLrSG RIKA: My last thought was of heart holds no bitterness Thy name will be the last words my lips shall speak. Fare we'll"
 Utter absence of all selfishness, all repinings over their fate as it imme- diately affected themselves, is touch- ingly apparent in all the messages. Lying close to the body of the young miner Janetz was that of his friend Moretz, who had a wife and two chil- dren. On paper in his cap he had written these words:
 Janetz has just died. Richer is dying. He GSyI. Gsays; s1 T nX fsn,iy ls1ys then sisa sss1 children May God keep you"
 Two brothers of the name of Jaehp were employed in the mine, working in alternate sshifts." On the day of the disaster the brother whose turn it was to work was unable to go, and his brother, although weary from his own toil, generously took his place. The poor man was among the victims. This message was found on his dead body:
 Thank God for his goodness. brother, You are safei
 The miner Schmidt wrote:
 My dear relations, while seeing death be- fore ne remember yoa- Farewell until VIC meet asain tn happiness.
 One of the doomed men was . man of family named Noller. His mesmge, found on the fly leaf of Testament in