Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-10-20
ALL IN ONE DREAM.
WORK ACCOMPLISHED BY A MAN IN
A SHORT SPACE OF TIME.

a Story Showing the Remarkable Swift
ness With Which the Mind Works when
1t j. Supposed to BE Taking a Rest-uo,,
Long 1t Took to Do Ten Hours, VOL
A few evenings since number cf
newspaper men were in an Office await
ing the arrival of a gentleman who was
to call together meeting that they had
been directed to report for their resnec.
tive papers
A number of topics was discussed
and one of these was dreams and the
extreme rapidity with which mental
operations are performed. A number of
experiences were given, but the one that
attracted the most attention was that of
Call representative, who narrated what
he had done in a dream.
ut was" said he, ''in 1868 that after
a hard days work / reached home and
lost 10 time i'll retiring. CHANGING at
the clock as I turned off the gas I noticed
that /. was Just IS minutes after mid
night
Shall tell You at this point how long
was dreaming or tell first what did
IN my dream: That you all NAV better
appreciate what was done, | will defer
the matter until the end. Bear in mind
that what Is to he told was all in the
dream. Seated in the old office on Com
merclal street, above Montgomery. I was
chdeavorlnS to put into presentahle
shape the facts of Il trial that had taken
place IN the district court. when in came
L. y. Rockwell. who was the chief ed
ltorlaI writer, and calling me by name
sad: You had better get ready and 20
to san Leandro. There's been a terri
bic r.hlroad accident. There's 80 or 60
people killed. and ] don't know how
many injured George E. Barnes at
that time one OF the proprietors and
managing editors, had overheard Rock
well. and in that Cui5t way of his suc-
Seste that no time be lost in REACHING
Oakland. and there procuring a buggy
ana par OF horses, to 90 to San Lean
dHo cr wherever the accident was.
flushing down to the ferry landing
at hncoracr of Pacific and Davis streets.
reached there in time to find that the
steamer for the o,hor side of the BAY had
just 'u,lod Cut, and that would have
to ", Il half an hour for the next boat.
bas delay was veEatious. and then when
tAc r;y boat did move eastwardit seem
Ell as Il she would never make her land
ing, aAe seemed TO be going so slowly.
When the slip on the other side was
reached, there was some accident TO the
local Train, and there was not any pro
spect o. starting for an hour or more.
There was not team Of any kind at the
landing. so l had to walk to Oakland.
"a desire to make up for the time lost
urged IIe on, and l think the time made
from the landing to Broadway and
Washington street has never been beaten
by II an. Near the corner l went into a
livery stable and ordered pair of horses
hitched up. There was a DELAY there.
for the proprietor had his doubts about
the ability of the team making the trip
out and back. Finally l started, and
the way those horses flew over the road
was a caution. When the scene of the
disaster, some distance beyond San Lee
andre, about II miles from Oakland,
was reached, l proceeded at once to
gather the facts
down on the notebook We're penciled
the names Of 30 odd men, women and
children who had either been killed out
RICH or burned to death in some of the
cars which hao caught fire. Then fol
lowed the names of about 40 who had
beer injured, description of their in
juries and the opinions of the physicians
who were in attendance as to the posi-
BILE outcome in each case. Now, any of
you who have had experience in gather
ing information of that kind can fully
appreciate that it was not child's play,
for the injured were in different places,
and it required time to get around to
them all.
'"Then there was the obtaining of data