The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-13

MIR. MURPHY'S FAST RUN.
Helped by Cyclone He Did Some
Great Handcar Work
From the Chicago Record.

From the Chicago Record.
1t was probably in anticipation of COM
petition with the airship that the Burling
ton road put on it's eighty-six- miles-an-
hour train last Sunday. All the airship
inventors have claimed for their various
craft that the first and foremost achieve
ment would be in the way of great speed.
They have spoken lightly of breakfasting
in San Francisco dining at Des Moines,
and taking supper in Raines hotel in New
York. OF course no man has done this
kind of eating all in one day, but the av
erage navgators have necessarily talked
it, and possibly this kind of talk is re-
sponsibe for the repeated whiting down
by railroad people of time for long runs.
1t was a few months ago that another
Chicago railroad put in effect time sched-
ule with blisters upon it, and at that time
some mention was made by the Record
of some exceedingly fast riding over steel
rails elsewhere.
The article which was then printed
brought forward several living witnesses
of other cases of rapid locomotion, and
one of the instances called to mind by
writer signing himself "Veritas'' is that of
a funeral train which was run over the
old Marietta and Cincinnati railroad one
morning in April, 1879. Veritas assures all
whom he addresses that, regardless of the
claim of general passenger agents of these
later time the run of that funeral train
was the dizZieSt ever recorded, and that
it doubtless would have caused a wonder
full enthusiasm all over the world only
that the telegraph office al Frost was
blown down by the Storm and nobody
thought of any way of sending the story
to the Cincinnati papers. The correspond
ent says that the great marvel of the
whole enterprise lies not in the fact that
the run was made by a train with the dead
aboard, which. as everybody knows ought
to be a solemn and sedate sort of caravan
of grief, but that the outfit was made up
of handcars propelled by section men.
AT the time to which l refer" says the
chronicler, there was no Catholic church
between Athens and Parkersburg, and
when a death occurred among the people
of that religion the services had TO be con-
Quoted at either Athens or the West Vir-
ginia town. There are seven sections be-
tween the two cities l have mentioned,
and. as all the section employees were
members of the church, they rallied nobly
with their handcars to escort the remains
of a departed brother up or down the line.
The funerals were, of course, always held
on Sunday, for that was the only day
which the men could call their own, and
the only time, too, when the number of
trains was so reduced as to make a thirty
five-mile pull practicable.
I'm April, 1879, Michael P. O'Donovan, a
faithful and efficient wielder of a spike
maui, fell off a bridge on the Torch section,
and when his fellow employees went down
to gather him they found him consider
ably piecemeal. But they put him togeth-
er, walked him few nights, and arranged
for about the most first-class funeral which
could be got together. Having been one
of them, and having fallen outside the
breastworks, as it were, the other devel-
opers of the railroad interests of that re-
gion determined to make his funeral
grand, imposing, and ornate. So in addi-
ton to the regulation seven cars of the
seven sections always participating in such
services, some half dozen other foremen
down the line fixed 1t up to drill up to
Torch Saturday night, wake O'Donovan
some more. and poin in the procession in
the morning.
There we're thirteen hand cars in line
when they started out of Torch on Sun
day morning for the twenty-five miles pull
to Athens City. Any one could have told
them that was unlucky, but nobody hap
pened to think Of 1t at the Time though
many afterward alluded to II and pointed
to It as proof Of what II Is TO fly In the
face of Providence, even with a funeral.
Very cheerfuliy. however. the party start
ed westward. and had made three easy
miles when the sky was suddenly darkened
and a sort of chill came over the land
Twill ra-un, observed Patrick Shee-
han. Jerry, do be lendin' me a match
L loite tn poipe. fer tn sthrenkt NV ar
runs IL give man.. He ceased his reg
ular STOPPING and rising Of hapdcar work
and for a moment stood erect looking
back down the line Of cars. Suddenly he
cried:
BE heavens, LUX at thotl OPm DOM
med If the town av Torch aln't a kuarther
Of a noble up in the skoi an comm this
way lolke tn dlvil beatin' tanbarruk.
Ho-o-o-! There's the harses shprinklin'
not lolke-pushl Ye tarriers, pushl IT'S
a sickylonel It's all tn wind In tn hiv-
wins comm down tn I'm an See ro-ud
Arthur US Push!
THE front hand car gave a leap upward.
as though Il had been struck by some
thing which had burned It. and Mr. Shee-
han howled back a warning 10 the others
Just as a strip OF lightning shot across the
world and lit the overshaded country with
a sudden illumination which deepened the
after-darkness. The atmospheric disturb
ance had come up so quickly that "a ar
'forded some idea Of It's real speed when
Il should get well az them, and with sun
dry ordinations. those section men, ex-
perts In the matter OF handcar propulsion.
set the levers rising and falling so rapidly
that you could hardly see the change from
one 70 the other position. A yell came
from the roarward car. A sapllng, the
forerunner OF the wind. hid whlzzed
through the air and had fallen Just a few
feet back The next tree or plank or COW
would probably land one or two Hibernlan
victims.
Three minutes after the first good
alarm had been sounded, that Accelerated
funeral train shot past Guysvile The
lever workers had not yet got their stroke.
But IN ten minutes they we're down 20
business and had ieft Stuart behind and
were going at q rate Of some thing more