Arizona republican., 1890-05-21
WALNUT GROVE FLOOD Children Made Orphans by
 the Flood.
Ninety-Three Thousand Dol
 lars Damage.
A Heavy Reckoning Demanded from the Storage COnpany-Argument
 Begun Yesterday.

The flood sufferers have begun their battle in earnest.
 Before Judge Kibby, in the District Court yesterday, Judge Harris Baldwin, of Prescott, offered.to argued plea in abatement for the defendent corporation in the now celebrated cases against the Walnut Grove Water Storage company ct al.
 There are fourteen of those cases in all, and the damages asked for aggre- gate s9S,000.
 The Walnut Grove disaster is of too recent occurance to need extensive men, tion at this time.
 The people of the whole United States were thrilled with horror when the news was flashed to every large city and even to the remotest hamlet in the land that great dam had burst in one of the mountain canons in Arizona, and that calamity differing in degree only from that at Johnstown had been visited upon the Sunset land.
 Nor was this horror lessened when the dispatches told how a rider, sent down in ample time to warn the people in the valley below of the coming disaster, had become drunken on the way and had barely escaped the angry flood with his own worthless life.
 After the horror had worn away, and people could take stock of the disaster in all its phases, the suits for damages now about to come to trial were begun in the District Court, Attorney General Churchill and J. B. Woodward appear ing for the plaintiffs and Judge Harris Baldwin for defendants.
 The complaint in one of these suits, that of Arthur $. Foushee as guardian of Carrie and Adelia Haynes, two minors whose parents were drowned by the flood, against the Walnut Grove Water Storage Company, H. S. Van Buren ct al., will serve as sample for all the rest
 After the usual formal allegation as to the status of the corporation and its Directors, of whom Van Buren is alleged to be one, is alleged that plaintiffs care lessly and negligently maintained a reservoir near the headwaters of Hasa yampa creek; that by means of an in- sufficient, adjective and negligently con- struCted dam built by the defendant corporation a large body of water was collected; that theia dam was across Hassayampa creek, the waters of which, but for it's existence, would have flowed down hsrmlessly in the proper channel on the 22d of Februar, 1890, Carrie and Adelia Haynes were living with their parents, J. Haynes, their father, and l.. J. Haynes, their mother, in q tent on the Hasayampa, about seventeen miles below the dam: shat on that day, by reason of the defec- tive construction and negligent mainten- ance of the dam, it broke away discharg- ing the immense body of water stored in the reservoir; that this water, suddenly and without warning, flowed down the Hasayampa in irresistible volume, drowning the father and mother of the Haynes children
 Plaintiff therefore prays damages in | the sum of S50, ,000.
 The plea in abatement yesterday argued Tn this case made the points that | the main office of the water storage company was not in the county of Mari copa; that it's principal place of business was not in that county; that the death of Haynes and his wife had occurred in Iavapai and not in Maricopa county that their bodies were found in the for | mer and not in the latter; that no suffi- ! Cient ground for action had been shown in the complaint and that this court had no jurisdiction in the matter.
 Judge Baldwin spoke at great length |. upon these points, concluding his argu ment just as the hour of adjournment arrived. He will be answered to-day by |. Messrs. Churchill and Woodward.