The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-09-07
DEFECTIVE BRAKES
Let An Electric Car Go Down Grade
at Fearful Rate.
It Strikes Telephone Pole and is Cut In
Two-One Person Killed, Three Fa-
tally Injured and Twenty-Seven
Others More or Less Hurt.

otnere more Less
CINCINNATI, Sept A car became
unmanageable at McGregor avenue
Sunday afternoon, and after wild
flight of over mile jumped the track
at Broadway, crashed into a telegraph
pole, and one passenger was killed,
three fatally injured, and twenty-six
others more or less seriously hurt. The
accident occurred on the Avondale
electric line.
Three minutes of mortal terror,
whirling along through clouds of dust,
in runaway car at a speed that, at the
finish, is described as close to one hun
cred miles an hour, is an experience
that will never be effaced from the
memory of those who passed through
its horrors and will live to tell the tale.
For more than mile the runaway
car, itself weighing several tons, with
It's load of precious freight shot with a
velocity seldom attained in the most
expeditions railway travelling, and the
wonder of all was that the flying
monster kept the rails as long as it
did Down the steep grade the terrible
specter shot past wide-eyed and open
mouthed pedestrians, and along the
level grades it coasted, and then.
quarter of mile from the finish, took
the plunge that could end only in
death and destruction.
1t struck the sharp curves in the road
with iolts that huddled the passengers
together in heaps, and even despite the
efforts of the coolheaded crew, who
tried to throw it from the rails, it held
fn than with ri N aity that SnrnlIy
was predetermined by fate.
On, on it went for about mile, when
a steep declivity was reached, and the
plunge down this meant death, for just
at the bottom the street ends abruptly,
and line of houses-tall, brick struc-
tures-loomed up in front. Into this
the unmanageable car must plunge,
and the consequences must be horrible
to contemplate. And so it hap
pened; only a friendly telephone
pole reared its protecting hulk
between the unfortunates and what
seemed an awful fate. But even this
escape was not for all. The ponderous
mass, moving at a frightful velocity,
struck the pole, which, standing up
right, sliced the car in two as with
knife, for a distance of eight feet And
it was only when the solid iron work of
the motor struck it that the pole was
broken off at the base and came tum-
| bling down with its thick network of
wires, to add additional horrors to the
disaster. But even this obstruction did
not stay the forward motion OF the car,
for, carrying the fragments of the
huge spar with it, it struck the sup
,,il1nr Of tho Innr,pa,r. nf =,
brick house on the corner, and, al
though this pillar was of stone, twenty
by twenty inches in thickness, it was
torn from its place and shivered to
pieces
So great was the shock to the build
ing that with the corner support taken
from under it, it was thought that the
structure, a tive-story tenement house,
would collapse. This, however, was
prevented by bracing it up with heavy
wooden beams, two on either side, un-
til the stone pillar can be replaced.
The car itself was literally smashed to
atoms, that lay for hundreds of feet in
every direction, to be trampled by the
crowd that gathered, as if by magic,
around the scene of the disaster.
But the occupants of the car, they
who took that terrible ride, what Of
them?
Twenty were borne away to the hos
pital in the swift and every ready
patrol wagons, and one poor thing, a
little girl, with pretty face and long,
dark hair, now matted with blood,
was lifted tenderly to the stretchers
and carried to the morgue. She was
dead when taken from the wreck, and
for several hours was unidentified. OF
the others, several are SO badly hurt
that they can not recover, while others,
although they may regain health and
strength, will carry the marks of their
injuries to their dying day. Mamie
Merlin, aged 13 years was killed, and
Louisa Earhart aged 63, Mrs. Beckley
and Nora Mahoney were fatally hurt.