The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-08-04
WHERE DID 1T COME FROM?
POLiCE THINK THAT SOME OTHER
HOUSE MUST BE SHORT
ONE.
Last Nights Unprecedented storm
Raised Havoc With Lightning
Systems, Glass, Etc.

oA cos. oppressed Dy the ennut Of
long hot spell, and soured by the sultry
AFTERNOON, demanded that the ceIes-
tlaI entertainers prepare for him a
reVel the like of which has never been
had, and he had it,
So did ST. Paul. Not the ST. Paul
who had the ready letter writer and
wrote epistles to Christians and heath
en- alike with the same easy grace, but
the perspiring city that nestles among
the hills that overlook the Father
of Waters.
The first number en- the programme
was display of fireworks, with a sham
battle between the heavenly artillery
corps. 1t was the dryest part Of the
programme, but the benign Boreas
seemed to enjoy it, and the rest of the
audience had to sit through it anyway.
The first display centered on Merriam
HILL sheet after sheet of electric fluid
flashing through the tops Of the trees
and rejecting its mellow glare In the
windows and on the slated roofs The
sheets as fast as they disappeared,
there reappeared on St. Anthony hill,
Dayton's bluff. or the West side, as
the erratic stage manager of the exhi-
bition might determine Following
louder, as if of advancing armies, and
the sheets gave way to snake-like
flashes which revealed behind and
around them ominous black clouds
that were playing as understudies to
the sable curtain of night At first
these snaky fires were content to IL
lumine one or two clouds at a time,
but eventually they became more and
mora confident of their
or three of them would unite in a dia-
logue that would occupy an arc of sew
eral degrees and would make so vivid
an impression that it seemed much
longer in duration than the millionth
part of a second than It really occupied.
Ordinarily such displays would have
been accompanied by rain, or even
hail, but this time, they were as dry
as thought. The clock had even then
struck the hour of midnight, and
Mayor Doran's regime was in force.
This condition of dryness lasted about
half an hour, when just a dash of water
was thrown into the display, in order
that the villain might turn up his coat
collar, saunter into the middle of the
stage and exclaim: bad night along
shore, Capl Wish we hadn't under
took the job tonight.
Which rather ungrammatical but
truly histrionic remark showed that
Boreas is not unsensitive to the dra-
matte impulses which animate ordinary
mortals
The first sprinkle was hardly worth
mention in any but painstaking
and detailed description of the storm
which this Is, without doubt Fol
lowing the sprinkle there was another
n oil ~, lit
the thunder grew In intensity, until it
seemed as though in addition to the
artillery combat in progress so long
the suffers of the opposing regiments
were fighting for the common purse.
The thunder came in sharp, short dis
charges, like the oaths of trooper in
Flanders, and the fiery furnace of or
thodox religion was mimicked In in
verted mirage before the eyes of a re-
spectful, If not devout, populace
Finally even this became monoto-
nous to the blase director Of the me-
teorological department, and he added
little wind to the mix up on the
stage. Just to show he played no
favorites, he first sent out little serio-
comic zephyr, who sang love songs in
the ears of the serfs of earth, whose
oozing brows gave warm welcome to
her cooling breath The siren had
almost succeeded in converting the
populace to a belief that Boreas was a
benefactor, when she suddenly declined
to respond to an encore, and with a
pout, rushed from the stage Her sue
cessor was burly gale, with a very
loud makeup that might have found
its make up in some Of the sports that
travel with Corbett.
He tossed a few heavy dumbbells.
and pounded the clouds around with
his fists. Then descending to things
nf l. L. s.z1-1
Portland cement, weighing something
like $50 pounds each, and rolled them
down the Third street hill. Some of
them struck the curb and broke while
others rolled down the hill till they
could roll no longer and lay there as
helpless testimonials of the Herculean
exhibition. little legerdemain was
also included in the new ccmer's turn,
for he pulled roof out of some corner
of the stage. no one could see Just
where, and stuck 1t through the trans
verse section of a dwelling house at
Seventh and Ramsey streets, just to
amuse the neighbors. He fortunately
stuck it through section of the house
where there were no beds, and did not
mutilate any of the sleeping occupants.
He pushed his fingers through show
windows half an inch thick with the
nonchalance Of a copper on his first
day in uniform and mixed up the
signs not only on the streets, but on
the houses facing the street He
touched a button and in moment the
city was In darkness. He gave the
Pioneer Press building q push and it
rocked on It's foundation till the hith-
erto irreverent pencil pushers allowed
that their time, perhaps, had come,
and decided to reform. He brushed
his palm over the tops Of groves and
public parks and with one pass swept
branches into the opposite corners Of
the city. One force alone, rose su-
periOr to him, the street cars With
electric lights extinguished, and tele-
phones tied up in a hard knot, these
heavy conductors alone resisted the
storm, and the cars fought their way
desperately in the teeth of the wind,
delayed, but not conquered.
After the wind came the rain, equally
irresistible In It's fury. It came in
sheets with the wind, seemingly not
down but across. now one way and now
another, as the wind changed its
direction. The rubbish III the streets
which are being reconstructed fur
nished an especially inviting target and
the paving blocks that have just been
removed from there were washed in
to and down the intersecting streets
hither and thither until many OF them
were found near the union depot.
1t mixed with the spilled cement on