The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-12-19
DEATH
| NEAR At HAND
The Ex-Secretary's Family
Now Admit That He
Cannot Survive.
REVIVED WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY
FROM HIS SINKING SPELL.

Excitement in Washington Intense When
the News Spread that He Was Dying
He is Lying Now in a Semi Unconscious
state-A Slight Improvement which
Does Little to Allay Apprehension.
WASHINGTON, Dec 49, - The life of
James g. Blaine still hangs trembling
in the balance. For a long time yester-
day hope was abandoned and the end was
momentarily expected by physicians,
family and friends All stimulation is
thrown aside in the apparent imminent
presence Of death, and the suppressed facts
of his illness, the long denied but now ad-
mitted Bright's disease, the occasional in
teryals of delirium, the long hours when
he has lain incapable of speech or motion,
these and other distressing features of his
illness all incidental to the one over
| powering organic trouble, are now ad-
mitted
The physicians assert that there have
not been any hemorrhages, as has been
stated, but this is almost the only alarm
/ ing symptom which is now denied
The first crisis was reached between 10
and II O'Clock yesterday morning, when
sinking spell set in from which the
worst was feared.
! His family were called around the bed
side, and his physicians sent messenger
after messenger to the nearest drug store
with prescriptions requiring hasty atten-
| tion.
| The patient lay unconscious, and, to all
appearances, dying, until shortly before |
p. m, when a rally set in. His pulse,
which bad almost ceased to beat, again
became perceptible, and partial con
sciousness was restored.
| While the improvement in Mr.. Blaine's
condition is but slight and not sufficient
TO afford any encouragement to his
family, the reaction has seemed to modify
the feeling of apprehension for the imme-
date future.
All through the day and night repre-
sentatives Of the press patrolled
Madison place and carefully watched the
old red mansion which has become cele-
brated for its historical associations and
the fatality with which misfortune has
followed its occupants. From the Sickles-
Keys tragedy, which occurred more than
third Of u century ago, followed by the
attempted assassination of Secretary Sew
ard during the last year of the Civil War,
down to the present time the pail of ill
fate has hung over the mansion. During
the less than four years occupancy of this
house by the Blaine family, Col Cop
pinger's wife, Walker Blaine and Emmons
Blaine, the Secretary's promising sons,
have died.
Inc excitement throughout the city
was intense as the news of Mr.. Blaine's
condition spread, and, Sunday though it
was, the newspapers issued extras
which found a rapid sale
From an intimate friend of the family
it is learned that it was only when Mr.
Blaine was suddenly seized with the sink
ing spell yesterday, which threatened for
some time to terminate with heart fail
ure, that his family fully realized how
near he was to death. For few seconds
he seemed to be in extremis, and the
watchers bent anxiously over him.
The emaciated face of the dying states
man was white as marble, and his features
were sadly drawn. At times he scarcely
seemed to breathe, and at others gasped
for breath
The physicians who had been hastily
summoned were in the meantime not
idle. They piled him with stimulative
cordials, the trained nurses chafed his ex-
tremities, and it was only after working
over the patient for upwards of 80 min
utes and the application of every art
known to the medical profession that Mr..
Blaine slowly revived.