Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-09-26
A QUEER EXPERIENCE
AIma-Tadema'S Miraculous ES-
cape From Death.
FREAKS OF AN EXPLOSION.

The Artists House Was Wrecked, and
How He Cot Out Alive and Unin-
jured Is Mystery-The Puzzle of the
Staircase and Hallway.
In 1874 a canalboat carrying a hun
dred barrels of gunpOwder along the
Regents park canal in London ex-
plOded just opposite the magnificent
house of Laurence Alma-Tadema. the
famous artist, across the road This
Happened at o'clock on rainy morn
ing. Every window in London within
q radius Of mile was smashed. and
the houses in the immediate vicinity.
though solidly built of brick and stone
were wrecked.
II was sound asleep in bed at the
time said Alma-Tadema. land the
first knew of the explosion was when
/ found myself standing out on the
sidewalk in front of my house in the
rain, with my pajamas on and bare
feet. How / got there / never knew.
The entire top of the brick wall in
front of the lawn before my house was
blown off, and the front of the house
itself was as if driven in by the blow
Of a giants fist
''The canalboat, we found out after
ward, had blown up underneath solid
bridge that crossed the canal at that
point Had it not been for that my
house and the others near it would
have been utterly knocked to pieces.
1t was fortunate, too, that there was
no one on the street at the time. Had
the explosion occurred in the daytime
hundreds of persons might have been
Killed or MANNED
But the strangest episode connected
with the event concerned the man
whose duty it was to keep watch on
the bridge during the night. His name
was Peter Knox. He was thirty-Seven
years old, married and had two chill
dren. 1 knew the fellow and had often
ehatted with him on the bridge. The
day before the explosion he had ar
ranged with friend of his to come at
o'clock and relieve him. 1t was a
Saturday, and he wanted to take his
wife and children a little trip down to
Bushey park on the Thames. and he
wished to get to his home in east Lon
don in time so as to have breakfast
and be off early on Sunday morning.
''Well, as 4 o'clock drew near, Peter,
so he told me afterward, began to feel
anxious lest his friend should have
forgotten the appointment. He paced
up and down the bridge and looked
up the street, but the morning was so
dark and misty with the rain that he
could see only short distance. A
few minutes before 4, he said. he no.
9iced a line Of canalboats come slow
" down toward the bridge. but paid
no special attention to them.
'Just before the first boat passed
under the bridge he stepped of it.
though in doing so he was infringing
the regulations, and sauntered up the
street in the direction from which he
expected his friend to appear. He had
gone about forty yards when the ex-
plosion took place, and when he turned
not brick Of the bridge was left. If
he had been less impatient or if his
friend had been more prompt. one or
both Of them would never have been
seen or heard of again.
But my own little adventure was
singular enough. AS l said. I was
not conscious of having been awak-
ened by the explosion, still less Of
having got out of bed, come down
stairs. opened the front door and step
ped out to the sidewalk. The shock
had knocked all memory of these acts
out of my head, and I have never re-
covered it..
"But what puzzled me most was the
condition of things l found when l
went back into the house. The hall
was mass of wreckage, and the stair
case from top to bottom was covered
with pieces of broken glass, sharp as
razors and so distributed that / found
it impossible to ascend without a light
to show me where not to tread.
Nevertheless I had come down
those same stairs, with my eyes shut
or unseeing. and had never so much as
scratched my bare feet. The thing
was impossible, and yet had done it
had been skeptical about miracles
before that but since then / have been
both a believer and an evangelist
Chicago Record-Herald.