The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-08-23
LIGHTNING WALKS A FENCE
And Leaves 1e6 Heaps of Ashes and
 Four PosthoIes.
From New York Sun.

From New York Sun.
 A tale of a strenuous ligning bolt in the storm of Monday night comes from the police of the Morrisania station. Around one of the four lawns which sur round the Heine fountain in the Fleet wood park, at One Hundred and Sixty first street the Fleetwood avenue are 196 little heaps of splinters and charred wood and four posthoies, evidence which supports the story of Policeman Pat rick Burns.
 Ever since the Heine monument was relegated to the Bronx policeman has been detailed to guard this much-ma- ligned work of art by day and by night. The park is in a lonely part of the Bronx, and for the comfort of the guard of honor a sentry box has been built near the base of the monument. It was was here that Burns was found by his relief shortly before 1 o'clock yesterday morning in a semi-conscious state This is the tale he told:
 When the dark clouds came up just before dark, l was sitting under the big oak tree watchin' the three puppies we keep in the shanty for company, worry in dead mole. All of a sudden the rain came down like Nigagara Falls. I made two jumps to the shanty and shut the door when I remembered the puppies out there like to be drowned, and I runs back for them through water over my shoes.
 T hadn't gone ten steps when there came the awfullest glare and crsah and l felt like I was burning up. Next thing l remember I found myself on my mar row bones about ten feet from the tree, Gno rIf1f af nd a,-afxr tfrA
 If I had fallen flat I'd been drowned sure. for high water mark was half way up my blouse. I heard the puppies bark ing and that made me think of the shan ty. l managed to crawl in, and 1t was just five minutes after 10 by the little clock. More than two hours of burning I'd had"
 The relief took Burns to the station house and after the administration of stimulants he was able to go home. He won't be fit for duty for a week. the captain says. The marvel was revealed when daylight came. The big oak tree near which Burns fell is used as the starting point of wire fence stretched around one of the lawns and held up 20( posts, each about three feet high. This wire begins at the east side of the tree and after crcling the lawn fetches up al the west side of the tree trunk
 The oak showed a long groove of white on it's eastern side where the bolt had plowed down the trunk from the upper branches to the fence wire. Every one of the posts had been shattered and the wire lay along the ground. A careful count of the little heaps of splinters where the posts had stood five feet apart showed that four of them had been completely destroyed, reduced to nothingness" the roundsman said. Then on the west side of the trunk was a shallower groove where the lightning had run up the trunk again.
 Only two of the puppies were found with Officer Burns. The third, the po- lice say, was annihilated. but Burns thinks 1t was washed away.
 The lightning didn't touch the statues. lrreverent residents said the lightning undoubtedly came down the tree, saw the statuary, and went up again, after wrecking the fence.