The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-06-26
FOUR KILLED.
And Three Fatally Injured by
Live Electric Wires.
4 Father, Son and Two Other Men
Drop as Boiler They Are Moving
Touches Live Electric Wires.

Four men went to instant death
father and son dropping together
without chance to say good-by-
and three others were probably fat
ally injured Friday evening at Mari.
ners Harbor Staten Island, in an &C
cident characterized by remarkable
incidents
A high tension current of $4,000
volts in three wires sped through the
bodies of the four men and a heavy
percentage OF this tremendous power
paralyZed the other three.
The tragedy occurred in the big
soap factory of Proctor & Gamble,
on Western avenue. Only half a
dozen men saw the lives of the vic
tins snuffed out.
Two Of the dead have been identi-
fed. They are William Goruy and
his son, William, both of No. 35S w.
Forth-siXth street, Manhattan.
The names of the other dead and
of the three survivors who are in st.
Vincent's Hospital at Livingston have
not been learned.
Two foremen. Patrick Sweeney. of
Cort lane. Mariners Harbor and Will
liam Burke. of No. 4 Taylor street.
Mariners Harbor. have been arrested
on charges of criminal negligence.
1t was about $50 when the seven
men. employed as laborers in the
yards of the factory, We're told to re-
move a big boiler in the rear of the
structure. Hundreds of employers
had filed out of the gates by that
time and were hurrying home Soon
only half dozen men were left
the watchman and belated soap fat
renderers.
BY six o'clock all preparations had
been made for taking the boiler
across Western avenue to the new
building erected by the firm.
From the rear yard there extends
through a sort of alley so wide that
it might be called street, a single
track upon which flat cars run. A
derrick had been used to hoist the
boiler to one of these cars. and the
seven workers had lashed it to the
framework.
Goruy and his boy were side by
side. painting with eXertion. Just as
the men were about to release their
hold and let the car slip, through the
force of gravity. down the alley and
across the street. there was tremen-
dous flash of binding. incandescent
light. and a succession of sharp, deaf
ening explosions.
The boiler stack had severed three
of the ten wires. instantly becoming
a conductor of electricity. Without
even a moan Goroy and his boy. both
of whom had their hands on the
metal. dropped as if struck by light
ming. stone dead. The two unidenti-
fed men on the other side of the car
plunged to the ground, instantly kill
ed.
The three workmen at the rear,
having hold of the woodwork, did
not receive shock Immediately. One
of the three severed wires. which
were sputtering on the ground and
souirming and twisting like SO many
snakes. swished up and coiled around
the neck Of one man, unwlndlng IN
an instant.
The other two wires were plung-
ing and flying about, emitting show
ers of sparks. On the ground lay the
man whose neck had been encircled
In the fraction of second his com
panions were down-not stretched
out as would be man who was shot
or stabbed to death, but huddled 1r
the shapeless heap that is the result
| of the awful contraction Of the
muscles incident to death or lnJur!
bv e1ectricity