The Topeka state journal., 1897-11-24
CITY POISONED BY GAS.
Fife IN Thousand Persons in Mount
Vernon Made Sick.


Mount Vernon, Nov. 24.-The gas in this
city was working all right last night,
much to everybody's relief.
Mount Vernon has population of 1900.
/ Fifteen thousand of these had headaches
and something more Saturday, Sunday
and Monday. Hundreds of them turned
faint at the sight of food, others could
not speak clearly. Some had lost their
voices altogether. The brains of all were
befogged. Not a few persons walked in
| an uncertain way. Complaints of numb
ness. pains in bones and choking sensa-
| tions We're so numerous that one paid
no attention to them
Two hundred and seventy thousand feet
! of poisonous gas was pumped into 2,800
| houses and stores between p. m. Friday
and a. m. Saturday. The gas was heav-
! lily charged with sulphur and ammonia.
The fumes of these poisons were inhaled
by 50 per cent of the people of the city.
A couple of hundred had narrow escapes
| from death by asphyxiation.
Assistant Superintendent Benjamin Ait
ken of the gas company was reported to
have said to a friend early in the day:
THE storage capacity of the plant is not
great enough. When the engine broke
down we had to send out the gas in an
impure state"
One of the last places to close was the
! barber shop of Adolph Schmidt on South
Fourth avenue. There were dozen men
there who wanted to be shaved. The bar>
bers could work only very slowly.
One of the waiting men was Chief of
| Police jeremiah c. Foley. Suddenly he
| collapsed in his chair and friends dragged
! him out on the sidewalk, where he reviv>
ed in a few minutes. Just before that
a man who was being shaved had vio-
lent attack of nausea. He thought he
was dying and rushed up the street with
one half of his face shaved and the other
covered with lather.
! The saloons also had to close about the
same time. Patrick Bredt's, Jacob Schu-
ermann's and Jacob Mohr's and Henry
loves jewelry store and Matthew Dukes
cigar shop, all on Mount Vernon avenue,
closed within a few minutes of one an
other.
The Chester Hill club is the fashionable
club of Mount Vernon. Its members are
largely composed Of well-to-dO New York
business men. 1t has fine house on
Chester HILL the aristocratic residential
section of the city.
Friday night the club gave a smoker
and between forty and fifty members had
gathered to have a good time. Before 8
o'clock the odor was strong.
Smoke up, boys" said the president.
its nothing and Wen soon drown it
OUT
But the smell increased and the men
were soon coughing and sneezing.
Lets have a drink all around and see
what that will do advised the presi>
dent.
The appearance of the drinks caused
half of the members to make for the lee
rail of the piazza. They were victims of
the general nausea with which two-thirds
of the residents of the town were suffer-
ing.
The other half of the members went out
on the piazza too. Inside of half an hour
the sulphurous fumes had become so
strong that they were driven off the
porch onto the lawn. A few of the hardl~
est finished the smoker there, but the most
of the members went to their homes
where they spent the rest of the night
nursing their families and running for
the doctor and to the drug stores
One of the most pathetic incidents OF
the night occurred in the home of DR.. t
F. Goodwin, who lives on South Third
avenue. DR.. GoOdwin's sister-in-laH.
Miss Lily Smith, lives in the house Miss
Smith is to be married next month.
About s clock she went upstairs to her
room, saying that she wanted to do some
sewing. She sat in a rocker with a gas
stove close by. At o'clock when Dr.
Goodwin became alarmed at the noisome
odor in the house, he ran into Miss
Smiths room to advise her to open all of
the windows.
He found the girl sitting in the chair
unconscious. On her lap was her we'd
ding dress, upon which she had been sew
ing. DR. Goodwin said that if she had
remained there another hour the wedding
garment would have been her death
shroud. Miss Smith had not fully recov-
cred from the effect of the poison last
evening.
The Snow Drops is an association OF
young women of the city's smart set, and
is Mount Vernon's chief delight.
Friday night they had a rehearsal of a
minstrel show, which they are to give on
Thanksgiving night. 1t took place at the
Catholic Lyceum. Four gas stoves heated
the hall.
The thirty young ladies got along fam
ously early in the evening. Then they
began to grow faint in small squads.
First one window was opened and then
another. Finally all the windows were
opened, and then the doors were opened,
too But the stencil gained the fresh
air. The interlocutor couldn't talk, and
the responses of the end girls were very
much tangled up.
At o'clock they all decided to go home.
and Saturday every one of the girls was
in the doctors hands.
IN AVnTn THE ORDER