Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-07-25
A TORNADO IN A CITY.
John McGovern Writes Of the Deadly
Work of the Cloud Funnel.

Especial Correspondence.
CHICAGO July 14.-Tornadoes have gone
up and down America forever, but this
generation of human beings has done no
such thing. AS "A boy / read of water
spouts in 5he Indian ocean, but from 1851,
when began to take note of events, until
about 1875 | heard nothing of tornadoes,
though always in a printing office and al
ways an omnvorous reader of new.. Per-
haps, too, the tornadoes of oil speculation,
war and westward no filled up the theatre
of the mind.
The first tornado that made its actual APP
pearanCe on the horizon of our intellects
was the calamity of Hazel Green, a hamlet
on "A hill north of Galena, Ills. Stanley Hunt
ley the author of "Old Spoopendyke," was
sent out to gather particulars. Some of
these gatherings, | verify believe, were at
the basis of poor Stanley's fame as an i'm
aginary writer. l remember that he re-
ported this incident: A fagstone, for
pavement, lay on the ground at the foot OF
the hill. 1t assembled the funnel and be-
came the capital of the column, riding ma
jestically over the town, slowly revolving,
like some plate on the finger of juggler.
The next funnel came to Mt. Carmel, Ills,
and a second one followed fifteen years or
so later do not believe that the news of
battle itself so deeply moved western
Americans as did these crashings Of the in
visible chisel and lathe of heaven. In 1881
the great disaster of Grinnel, Ia, arrived
Let us suppose you have charge of the tel
egraphic news of great paper. At 8
o'clock a dispatch is brought, stating that
the city of Grinnel is in ruins. Then fol-
lows a beating of the entire telegraphic
bush. News of a storm at some town ad-
jacent to Grinnel gives the editor his path
of the tornado, for he then lays down his
map and draws a straight line across the two
towns. He sometimes thus finds a tornado
where none had been reported. He begs
New York and Boston to give him all their
preliminary information. He strives until
O'Clock Il. m. and always has a terrible
story by that time.
There is a goriness about cyclones that
the roaring rivers never offer to the news
paper man. Let the Mississippi roll seven
ty miles wide, there is no Sodom or Gomor-
rah at its bottom. New Orleans is to 20
under, but it never goes under. If dam
break, ahl that is different-in Connecti-
cut, in Pennsylvania, in Arizona But the
tornado not only kills instantly, it shoots
poisoned arrow. Its wounded are badly
hurt | remember the funnel that went
north in Mississippi in 1882, think. About
half the wounded died. A terrible year
was that lSS2-a year of telegraph editors
drawing lines across the map until the
thing was gridironed and annotated into
ELIGIBILITY. In one night dozen tunnels
crossed the Mississippi eastward, and one
of them reached Lake Michigan at Racine
Another stopped south of Chicago near
Joliet
At last the cyclone became familiar to
our slaughterous thoughts. We bought
books which showed that Omaha and Kan.
sas City had in 100 years shown the larg-
est number of these tunnels. We found
the cyclone theory-how the cold air
swings around on the southwest arc of the
big circle and explodes into upper heaven,
becoming electricity-and we turned our
attention from tornado to tariff, from woes
to weddings.
Yet this North American wheel, gyrat
ing over our cities with its southwestern
spokes carrying maelstroms, impresses me
more deeply than weddngs-for what is a
marriage but novel, and what is this
black funnel but "A facts Some time be-
fore the date of the lesser tornado that re-
Gently devastated Fargo went to Louis
wanted to put my fingers in the wounds
went where the thing began looked
over to distant point where it ended The
only expression of irresistible force to be
seen in the wreckage was the clean section
of brick walls. You can build on the part
that is left it is not sprung or cracked
Churches are complete wreck, because
they have but one room and are weaker
than a hpr h1lil1innS HAttSaS wifi mo
partitions make good resistance. Wooden
houses wavered, and by giving an inch re-
manned intact. About four tunnels went
over the city side by side. The lesson
should be to avoid large rooms, for the
studding did great salvage at Louisville.
| was most DESTROYS to touch the moral
effect. An old friend of mine was protec-
tor of Jewel lodge when the Falls City
hall went down, killing nineteen persons
The floor sank softly, like steam eleva-
tor. He prepared for death was struck,
covered, felt heavy rain, uncovered himself
and climbed out of ten feet of debris The
event has conquered his imagination
Thoughts Of history, of slavery, of war, of
strikes, Of monopoly, of bread and butter
have all vanished before the memory of
the monster that flew in on Louisville the
night of the 27th of March. Sleep is fitful
A survivor at Louisville greets the returned
companion of his youth politely, but falls
with tears on the neck of every fellow suf-
ferer. All dates begin at March 81 A
wounded victim dies at home or at the hos
pital; the news recalls the blackness, the
departing fury, the terror, the window
glass sucking outward, the grocer's bill,
written as the glass crashed, and next
found at Cincinnati
Now in July the bricks are piled neatly
in Louisville, the negroes quarrel as to
their relative quality, the funnel lanes fill
with new buildings, and the material world
is nearly repaired there; but the wheel has
got in its deadly work afresh at Fargo.
and perhaps here is food for reflection for
100000 Chicagoans, who build thirteen
stories and project Eiffel towers 800 feet
high. JOHN MCGovERN.
The Flood Girls.
|, L., |.