Lower coast gazette., 1909-11-27

CnerrV, lH.-Ihe st. Paul coal MINI
has given up one-fourth of its living.
At midnight there had come aliv.
out OF the mouth of the pit twenty-ont
, men, who for a week had been giver
up for dead.
At that hour there remained in the
mine upward of seventy men who were
still alive, but had not been brought te
the surface.
The men told tales of hardships and
privation and suffering. They told OF
fighting first against death in the shape
of fire, and later against the slow death
of suffocation.
For seven days they subsisted on
what little food was in their dinner
buckets, and the bark of the mine tim
bers, and drank the oil from their
lamps and the seepage in tho cutters
OF the mine. For seven days they
watched and waited and prayed for res
cue, and tuned their ears to sounds from
the outside world that would tell them
that rescuers were at hand.
Then when all were sinking into the
apathy of despair, and the songs they
had sung and the stories they had told
no longer served to keep their minds off
their slowly approaching doom, rescue
came, and willing hands dragged them
from their prison 300 feet under the
earth's surface, and brought them up
to home and friends.
Many of the survivors told of the
impromptu prayer meeting conducted by
VIM. Clelland some tiAs before they
were rescued. When the men were in
despair and ready to give up the fight,
Clelland started to sing a hymn. He
is a S%cotchman, a Presbyterian and a
deeply religious man. His hymn was
taken up at once by his companions.
The hymn was "Abide With Me-" and
the walled prison of the entombed men
rang with its melody. Encouraged by
the way the hymn had cheered the men
up, Clelland led in another and still an
other.
Sermon Precedes Rescue.
After singing for an hour, there was
a silence and then in that subterranean
tunnel Clelland preached a little sermon, !
He took no text, but urged the men to
pray to God that they might be rescued
from the terrible death that confronted
them. Then he prayed, aud all of his
fellow prisoners joined him and within
t%wenty-four hours they We're all free
men.
The first news that men were still
living in the mine reached the surface
at 2 pm. For days the interior of the
mine had been a fiery furnace, and all
hope that men might be still living in
side had been abandoned. Volunteers
had gone down to bring up the dead and
could scarcely believe their own senses
when they found living men to bring up.
The news spread like wildfre through
out the stricken village, and before the
first of the entombed men had stepped !
out OF the cage at the surface, q dense
throng surrounded the mouth of the pit,
Men, women and children deserted their
homes and ran, some of them half clad,
to the mines mouth.
The two companies of state troops
that had been sent by Gov. Deneen to
prevent disorder when dead bodies were
brought up, found no disorder until the
living appeared.
Women whose husbands, brothers and /.
sweethearts had been buried since the
fire broke out, became hysterical in their {
excitement and fought with the soldiers
to reach the mouth of the shaft. {
Many swooned. Those whom the SOL =,
dlers held back, as gently as they could, I
again and again to the attack, ,
and, Selling the guns of soldiers, en-
deavored to wrench them from their G
Many got through the lines and
would have hurled themselves head first Q
into the pit had they not been restrained.
Everywhere the village teemed with a
excitement. The progress of the men t
hrst rescued from the shaft to the cars +
was blocked every foot of the way by t
aystericai men and screaming women.
The mother of William Hynes, a lad
%, was standing at the mouth of :,
he shaft when the first twenty men "
up. Some one ran over to her and '
aid her son, whom she had given I'D :,
or dead, was still alive and would be =,
brought up soon. The woman dropped
o her knees on the ground and prayed :,
her thanks to God. Another by. >
tander told her a mistake had been -
made and her boy was dead. =,
The mother screamed and fell hack
n a swoon from which it is feared she
Will never recover. Within ten minutes !.
Hynes was brought up alive :,
nd well. el
Fall On Miners Necks.
Women who recognized among the r
Wenty-one men taken out their own m
IN would not be restrained, but threw T
themselves on their necks and sobbed, ne
cruising to tear themselves away when h,
NfSnV Am HNYV ~~A-- e.