The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-05

At the Place of the Terrible Disaster Re-
 pairs Had Frequently Been Made-CoroS'
 nor Wood Refused to Allow the Railroad
 to Take Any Part in the Inquest Pro-
 ceedings-SensationalT Testimony.
 Cold Springs, N. Y, Nov. 4.-The sec ond session of the coroner's inquest into the cause of the death of the victims of the disaster on the New York Central railroad near Garrisons October "A was held here to-day. The most important testimony as tending to show what caused the embankment to collapse and the train to plunge into the river was given by Michael Clare, a former sec tion master His testimony was cor roborated to some extent by two for mer section hands, who had worked under him.
 The only incident of the inquest that bordered on the sensational was the re- fusal of Coroner Wood, on the advice of District Attorney Southward, to per init counsel for the New York Central railroad to take any part in the pro- ceedings. After Clare had made his road-bed at the time he had charge of it, D. W. Tars, who with Robert Wilkin-
 son reresented the railroad, wanted to
 cross-examine Clare for the purpose of ShnWino that hp NIra IiSpb1rpa6 hV tho
 company for inebriety, but the district
 attorney interposed an objection and the coroner stated that the railroad company's counsel would not be allow edto either question witnesses or to call witnesses to testify.
 In an interview Messrs. Tars and Wilkinson said that the minds of the
 railroad officials are blank as to the
 cause of the accident and that their presence at the inquest was to assist to
 elicit the full truth and not to influence
 or shade the testimony in the slight
 est degree. MT. Tars said that for the
 first time in his experience he had been
 excluded from participation In cor | oner's inquest.
 Conductor Parrish was asked several
 questions as to the number of passen-
 gers on the train and his answers show
 that at least one passenger, a China | man, is still missing. John M. Toucey, general manager of
 the road, testified his statements not | materially differeing from published in- terviews. Michael Clare, the former section boss, was next called. He testified, in
 part as follows:
 "I worked for the New York Central from Dec. IA, 1895, to July 5, 1S97 and for sixteen months had charge of the section between GarrisonS and High lands, which included the place where | the accident occurred. The road-b bed | consisted of gravel before the dressing l of rock ballast was put on. There was | retaining wall to keep the bed in place, but some of the wall was in such condition that the stones were con- stantly pushing out
 "A new wall was built last fall out
 side of the retaining wall for the pur-
 pose of widening the embankment and
 thus strengthening the curve by throw ing the tracks out
 "The wall was not rebuilt during my
 time About sixty feet of this wall fell
 
 of where the accident occurred. The
 new wall was built close to the old
 one and some of the latter was torn to get stone for the new wall.
 q had considerable trouble with the road-bed. Some weeks the outer rails would sink below the surface line three or four inches. I have seen it go three
 months without settling and then again it would not stand for a week. The embanlSment of the wall was filled in with blue clay, cinders. stone and gravel. The water at this place is from forty-five to sixty feet deep. The com
 pany has dumped carloads of stones there to get a solid foundation, but they would seem to disappear as fast
 as put on."
 Oliver Clark, Harry Robbins and An thony Foy, who formerly worked as
 section hands under Clare, testified that they had at that time heard Clare say that it was the worst section of the track on the road and that more men should be assigned to work on it. The inquest was adjourned to Novem-
 Der p.
 The body of Stenographer Mckay has not yet been recovered.