Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-12-10
FEW ACCIDENTS IN GOTHAM.
This City Enjoys Almost an Immunity
From Serious Mishaps.

This City Enjoys Almost an Immunity
From Serious Mishaps.
With 4, 900 fires in year, 1000 ships ar
irving in and going out of the port of New
York, with more than 40, 900 deaths in
year-2, 600 of them described as ''acciden-
tal'-and a population, permanent and
transient, always in excess of 2, 900, ,000 it
has been matter of surprise that the city
of New York should have always enjoyed
practical exemption from such serious ac-
fidents as arise from panics, in crowds, in
public places, from fires and from building
disasters Isolated cases of such accidents
are known, it is true, but whereas in other
cities, as, for instance, the panic following
the czar's coronation in Moscow, Con-
stantinople riots, the Milwaukee hotel
fire, the burning Of the storage house at
the Chicago Worlds fair, the St Louis
cyclone and the Front Street theater fire
in Baltimore, are well known and by many
persons we'll remembered, there has not
been for % years in New York any disaster
or calamity which entailed huge loss of
life. All good New Workers. will be glad
to believe that this condition of things may
remain permanent, and 1t probably will
when the fact is recalled that New York's
exemption is due primarily to geographical
conditions which will certainly not change
and to legal methods for preserving good
order which are not likely to be altered in
the future
The most serious accident in respect to
loss of life entailed by it directly which
New York has had in 20 years occurred in
the summer of 1871, where the boiler of
the ferryboat Westfield exploded in the slip
at the foot of Whitehall street. By this
calamity 10 persons were drowned, "a were
scalded to death and 16 others met their
death through the explosion, a total of SO.
In the same year and about two weeks
before this the Orange riot took place ON
July 12, 1871, and by it 81 persons, 2
of them soldiers of the national guard,
were killed.
Following that in 1875, s persons were
killed by the panic resulting from the
fall of a wall from the burned building on
the roof of st. Andrews church on Duane
street.
The falling of portion Of the postoffice
roof in 1877 cost three lives, and the fall
ing of one of the walls of the Madison
Square Garden three years later, in 1880,
cost four lives.
In 1881 the falling of a building at the
corner of South Fifth avenue and Grand
street entailed the sacrifice of ten lives,
and the panic ON the Brooklyn bridge on
May 30, 1888 (the bridge was opened on
May 24), entailed loss of 12.
The collapse of four buildings on Park
place in the summer of 1891 entailed the
loss of 81 lives-36 burned and 25 suffo-
cated-and the Hotel Royal fire entailed a
loss of life which has never been accurately
| figured.
The last serious accident of the series
was the breakdown of the building at the
corner of South Fifth avenue and Third
street, wherein several workmen lost their
lives, and prosecution of those responsible
| for the calamity is still pending.
These instances of loss of life by panic
may be said to be the exceptions which
prove the rule of exemption in New York,
| though the city has been singularly free
from serious panics of any kind, especially
in theaters or political meeting places,
and, moreover, the enormous street crowds
which have gathered from various festivi-
ties and celebrations, more numerous than
| ever since 1889, have been handled in such
way as to avoid serious casualties -
New York Sun.