The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-17

The American machine guns clat- tered again, but the troops of the re- , gent rushed, defiant. They passed the piers and ran on when. behind them, . mighty, thunderous, detonation-a concussion of shock mols than a noise shook N 94, as it was vibrating all the rest of the water front. The clouds of smoke and dust rose this time from the base of the great bridge towers near the New York shore-the other towers already were lost in haze and as the cloud cleared the great towers tottered and crumpled.
 Down upon the river, down, down slowly, evenly at first, and now faster and faster, the whc,, mighty span of BrooAlJn bridge was falling with the towers breaking above it. Down it fell with it's thousands of specks which were men upon it. Down. It was just above the water. Now 1t met the wat er The concussion, the thunder of the meeting rumbled and rumbled Like a Titan's tuning fork, thousand yards all trembling, the bridge lay on the water. Now it was sinking. The towers had come down on the roadway, and as they crashed they seemed to bear the whole bridge below. The tidal wave from the impact dashed against the docks before N 94 and travelled on up the river. Now the water seem cd sucked back. The line of the bridge was a maelstrom. It swirled up and over the tiny stubs which had been tower piers. The American artillery, which had ceased firing when the bridge was falling. boomed back to the guns on the other side the volley of requiem. Brooklyn bridge was gone. ( Figures were struggling in the water above the maelstrom. Little boats craft whose purpose could only be to pick up those drowning men-put out from the New York shore toward the whirlpopls Shells from the other side screamed at the little boats, warned them. Then sunk one. The rest turn ed back. An hour later Jim Ashby saw from his window at N 94 the steel. towers and spans of Manhattan bridge fall into the liver. Williams burg bridge and the tunnels, too, were destroyed, he heard that night. Queens boro bridge, across Blackwell's island, would follow the others into the river as soon as the enemy attempted to storm it. y
 But the regents generals were send ing no more men across steel spans to test the American temper. They were shciling Manhattan thoroughly, sys- tematically, with their great siege pieces and howitzers placed in the parks of Brooklyn and the fields on Long Island. At midnight, for the third time since the landing, the regent himsef-his headquarters were then near Richmond Hill-sent an appeal by wireless to the, neutral ministers at Washington to use their influence with the president to bring about the sur render of New York. which was being refused by the Ame' ican madman- General 6tone-in the face of com. pletely hopeless military situation. Y
 Americans of the greatest power and influence were already urging the presi
 dent to the same object. Most of them had he'd from New York that day. The others had heard directly of conditions The general staff was mad. Stone was particularly insane. Bainbridge, who commanded the American army fin New York city. was fool. He had been beaten on Long Island, and with the regents army in Brooklyn commanding New York city, he had been out. maneuvered and fanked out of the city He coc,d not stay there; he must know that. But he refused to go, and the general stan refused to order him out