Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-15
FUNNY, IF FUNERAL.
Select Council Wrestles With a Ques-
tion of Burial Caskets
AND ATTENDANCE UPON OBSEQUIES
Chief Browns Report of the Disaster and
What 1t Necessitated.
COMMON COUNCIL ON GRADE CROSSINGS

Yesterdays session of Select Council was
as good as a play. The members had clash
ins' of fun, though the subject was grave
one-an ordinance providing against the
spread of contagious or infectious diseases
by indiscriminate attendance at funerals.
During the session, however, the Presi-
dent read communication from Chief
Brown, of the Department of Safety, as fol-
lows:
To the President and Members of Select and Com
mon Council Of the City of Pittsburg:
GENTLEMEN deem it proper to officially
notify you that on Wednesday, January 8,
seven-story building, known as the Wiley
building, situated on Diamond alley, near Wood
street, collapsed and fell down during the ter
rifle wind storm of that day. Sixty-four per-
sons were injured thereby. Is of whom are now
dead. Said building IN its fall carried with it
portions of other buildings, causing an immense
wreck.
This department. owing to the urgent neces-
sity, was compelled to employ large force OF
workmen, in addition to the assistance rem
dered by the police and fremen, for the rescu-
ing of dead dying and injured, and 1 would
respectfully ask your honorable bodies to pass
resolution authorizing the Controller of the
city to pay the expense incurred therein, when
said bills have been properly audited and
passed by him.
desire to officially convey the thanks of this
department to the many individuals, firms and
corporations that rendered valuable assistance
to this department, among them the firm of
Booth & Finn; Pier, Dannals & Co.; Contrac-
tors James Mcknight and Chaulk, the Alle-
gheny County Light Company, the Pennsylva-
mia Railroad, Joseph Horne & Co.; P. F. Mass
bach, of the Monongahela Sand Company;
Sheriff McCandless, Mr.. Carlin, of Allegheny;
Councilman Hugh Ferguson, who risked his
life to save the boy Gearing; Richard Pearsoll,
and to the many physicians of the city, among
them Drs. Oldshue, Mccain, Sutton, Wiley and
others.
The financial loss to the business houses in
jured in the wreck must be in excess of $780, 600;
by j. R. Weldin & Co., whose stock of goods
was almost totally destroyed.
Very respectfully yours.
]. o. BROWN,
Chief of the Department of Public Safety.
The report was received and resolution
authorizing the Controller to pay the bills in
Cured was passed. The resolution was then
messaged to the Common Council and passed
finally at once.
WHERE THE FUN CAME IN.
The first section of the interment ordi-
nance provides that the undertaken must
place the body of each person whose death
resulted from Asiatic cholera, yellow fever,
smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid fever, scarlet
fever in a close casket within six hours
after being notified The first section was
finally passed after amending by inserting
Ii o'clock P. M, instead of as the limit
for the undertaken to receive notice of a
death. The second and third sections were
passed upon and adopted without amend
ment, but the fourth section, which prohib-
its holding services over the remains of
in churches or chapels.
The tilt heated some of the members for
row when the ordinance regulating the |
and the time in which corpses should |
be buried when death resulted from in |
fictitious or contagious diseases. The body |
had gone into committee of the whole, Mr.. |
Robertson in the chair.
Mr. Cox opened the ball by stating that |
doctors didn't know diphtheria from Group. |
Mr.. Sullivan held that undertakers knew |
as much as doctors about contagious diseases, |
and then gave Mr.. Lambie stab by init |
mating that they didn't know as much |
about them as either doctors or undertakers,
and Mr.. Shelton put in that he knew a case
W0eTe q Cullu Olcu lIO" Group anu the
doctor had stated that the disease was
diphtheria. He didn't believe that scarlet
fever was contagious.
DR.. Evans admitted that it might be pos
sible for a doctor to be unable to say
whether patient had membranous Group
or diphtheria, but he argued that it did the
dead no harm to be boxed up within six
hours, no matter what the disease, and the
interest of the living ought to be con-
suited.
Lawyer Lambrie came back at Mr.. Sulli-
van, stating that he, Lambrie, didn't pro-
fess to know anything except what he had
been told by good authority, and thought it
safe to go to people who did know for in
formation. He read statistics to show that
in the last Is years nearly three times as
many people had died from scarlet fever
and diphtheria as from smallpox, and that
medical authorities pronounced the first two
IT WAS INCISIvE.
There was sharp discussion between Mr.