The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-10
EIGHT BLOWN TO PIECES
E SUIT OF PREMATURE EX-
 PLOSION OF PoWDNR.

Pa., on the Pennsylvania Railroad Im-
 provements and Directly Across sus-
 quehanna River from the Scene of the
 Great Wreck of May II in Which
 Twenty-three Were KiIIed--The Dead
 and Injured.
 Harrisburg, Pa, July Slight men were blown to pieces and two others injured by the premature explosion of a blast of powder on the Pennsylvania railroad improvements near New Cum berland at 7:30 o'clock this morning The accident occurred directly across the Susquehanna river from the scene of the Pennsylvania railroad work on May Il in which % persons were killed and many others injured. ~ ....s.
 All the victims of to-day's disaster were employees of H. S. Kerbaugh & Co.,, incorporated, contractors, who are building double tracks for the Pennsyl- vania railroad, The bodies of the men were terribly mangled and particles of flesh and bone were scattered for dist ance of 200 yards from the scene of the explosion.
 The dead are:
 James Wiseman, aged 50, dynamite boss. Buffalo. N. Y.
 ! Arthur Green, colored, 23 years old, steam driller, Harrisburg. Robert Thompson, colored, 23 years old, steam driller's helper, Harrisburg. Frank Mullach, a Slav, 43 years old. Three Italians and one Slave, known only by numbers.
 The injured are
 William Reed, colored, 20 years old, a steam driller, skull fractured and in- jured internally.
 G. c. Miller, 5S years old of Idaville, bruised about body, but not seriously. 1 Not a trace of the two negroes killed can be found and it isIsupposed their bodies were blown into the river, which is being dragged
 | An inquest was held this afternoon. The jury rendered verdict of pre- mature explosion from an unknown cause and no blame attached to the contractor
 All the killed and injured were labor CTS aside from Wisenian, whose body was terribly mangled. What could be found of it was identified by the fact that he dyed his hair. His scalp and a portion of his head was found on a hill 200 yards from the blast. Wiseman had been with the Kerbaugh company flor five years and had gone to the scene of the explosion to personally superin- tend the preparations for what is called a "big shot" to be fired tomorrow morning.
 A "big shot" consists of a series of blasts, the holes having been drilled Iand and the charges being set off sim ultaneously by an electric spark. Five lof the holes had been filled with pow lder and the men were at work on the Isixth when the explosion occurred. It lis supposed that small stone had got iten into the hole and the iron bar with which the men were "tamping'' down the charge caused a spark by scraping Ion the stone and that this ignited the powder.
 One Italian escaped because a fellow workman playfully snatched his hat and ran with it. The owner ran after the man with the hat and had just got out of the range of the explosion when it occurred. An Italian waterboy was Hurried fifty feet. Every stitch of cloth ling was torn from his body. A leather belt containing $S12 in paper money, supposed to belong to one of the work men was picked up near the scene of the explosion. Pieces of flesh and bone
 were found fastened in the telegraph wires over the railroad tracks.
 The force of the explosion was felt for miles and broke many windows in
 Horrisburg and tows across the river !