The Cotton Factory Times. — 1899-06-23 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

HORROR OF MT SITUATION. While I was wrapped in the heavy sleep of exhaustion, the engineer had returned to his work for the day, and supposing me long ago gone, had replaced the boiler head and was filling the boiler with water. For a moment I became a madman. I screamed with rage, and struck the cold iron of my tomb with clenched fists. I cried ont against the cruelty which had destined me to so cruel a death. Thieves, ruffians, and murderers were free to enjoy the blue sky and glorious sunlight, while I, an honest workman, was entombed, to be slowly drowned, or, still worse, boiled to death. But there must be some mode of escape. I would not be drowned like a rat in a flooded drain, without a struggle for life and freedom. I seized my hammer, crawled to the front, and struck with all my force upon the boiler head. But before it was a thick iron hood, which deadened all sound to those without. My senses were quickened to an unnatural sharpness, and a new sound, more piercing and more heartrending, overpowered the splash of the falling water. It was the roar of the fire in the furnace below. Death by drowning was far less frightful than the one that now threatened me. There was but one hope, one chance of escape. If I could burst a hole through the iron, and flood the blazing coal, I might save myself. Among my tools was a punch. Slowly I crawled through the water, growing sensibly warm, to the place where I had been working, and groped till I found it. Back in the same tiresome way till near the furnace door; I placed the punch in position, and struck with all my force. But alas! the depth of the water caused my hammer to rebound, and a lukewarm splash upon my face showed me that my escape must be quicker than the quick death that threatened, or it would never be. How could my blow be made effective? Suddenly a HOPS  THRILL  shot through my mind; I recalled a long countersink which I had been using. With this I might so lengthen the punch as to strike an effective blow. A third journey of anguish through the water now almost hot, brought me with my last hope to the place where I had been trying to pierce the boilerplate. Putting the countersink upon the punch, and holding their junction with my left hand, I struck a mighty blow. The tools flew apart, my left hand was frightfully cut, but, God be thanked, I felt the iron yield beneath the punch. Again I placed the tools, and again I struck. Blow followed blow, and though the heat was torture, and each blow mutilated my already wounded hand, joy filled my heart, for I felt the depression growing deeper at each stroke. At last the punch burst through the iron. I heard the fierce hiss of the water as it struck the blazing coals, and the clang of the furnace door as the astonished fireman swung it to learn the cause of the steam's sudden escape. I quickly thrust my fingers through the hole amid the rushing water, and heard hisscreams of terror at the sight. Then the quick fall of the rakes upon the coals, as the fire was drawn fell like angels' voices on my ears, and I knew no more. When I regained my senses many days afterwards, the girl I was to marry was sitting by my bedside, and I a mangled wreck, was lying thereon. This was thirty seven years ago, yet kill I often wake in agony from my sleep, and hear the rush of water, the roar of flames, and the sharp hiss of the steam.