Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-01
A QUEER EXPERIENCE
Alma. .Tadema's Miraculous Es.
 cape From Death.
FREAKS OF AN EXPLOSION.
The Artists House Was Wrecked, and How He Got Out Alive and unln. jured ls . Mystery--Ths Puxxls Of the Staircase and Hallway.

How He Got Out Alive and unIn.
 jured ls . Mystery-Ths Puxxls of the
 Staircase and Hallway.
 In 1874 canalboat carrying hun dred barrels of gunpowder along tho Regents park canal in London ex' ploded just opposite the magnificent house of Laurence Alma -Tadema, tho famous artist. across the road. This happened at 4 o'clock on rainy morn ing. Every window fin London within n radius of mile was smashed. and the houses in the immediate vicinity. though solidly built of brick and stone, were wrecked.
 T was sound asleep in bed at the time," said Alma-Tadema. and the first knew of the explosion was when found myself standing out on the sidewalk in front of my house in tho rain, with my pajamas on and barc feet. How l got there never knew. The entire top of the brick wall In front of the lawn before my house was blown of, and the front of the houss itself was as if driven in by the blow of giants fist.
 "The canalboat, we found out after ward. had blown up underneath a solid bridge that crossed the canal at that point. Had it not been for that my house and the others near 1t would have been utterly knocked to pieces. It 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 maimed.
 "But the strangest episode connected with the event concerned the man whose duty 1t was to keep watch on the bridge during the night. Ills name was Peter Knox. He was thirty-seven years old, married and had two chil- dren. knew the fellow and had often chatted with him on the bridge. Tho day before the explosion he had ar ranged with friend of his to come at 4 o'clock and relieve him. It was q Saturday, and he wanted to take his wife and children 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 of early on Sunday morning.
 Well, as o'clock drew near, Peter, so he told me afterward, began to feel anxious lest his friend should have forgotten the appointment. He paced i 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 q short distance. A few minutes before 4, he said. he no- 1 ticed a line of canalboats come slow ly down toward the bridge, but paid no special attention to them.
 Just before the first boat passed under the bridge he stepped on 1t, though in doing so he was infringing 1 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 1 friend had been more prompt, one or 1 both of them would never have been seen or heard of again.
 But my own little adventure was singular enough. As said. was not conscious of having been awak- ened by the explosion, still less o1 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 have never re covered 1t.
 l "But what puzzled me most was tho condition of things found when went back into the house. The hall was a 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 1t impossible to ascend without light to show me where not to tread.
 Nevertheless had come down those same stairs. with my eyes shut or unseeing. and had never so much aa scratched my bare feet. The thine was impossible, and yet had done It I had been skeptical about miracles
 before that, but since then have been
 both a believer and an evangelist '- Chicago Record Herald.