LOS ANGELES, CAL., Dec. 31.—The winds, whose treacheries Arch Hoxsey so often defied and conquered, killed the noted aviator to-day. As if jealous of his intrepidity, they seized him and his fragile flying machine, flung them down out of the sky and crushed out his life.
He fell dead in the field from which he had risen but a short time before with a laughing promise to thousands of cheering spectators to pierce the zenith of the heavens, surpass his own phenomenal altitude record and soar higher than any other man dared go.
Cross currents, whirled off from a vagrant storm that floated in from the sea, caught his biplane and shot him downward 563 feet to earth.
His body lay broken and twisted almost out of all semblance to a human form. All of the spectators in the grand stand witnessed the tragedy, as it occurred directly in front of them on the opposite side of the course.
They sat in awe-stricken silence until the announcer gave out the words through the megaphone:
“Hoxsey has been killed.”
Then from every part of the great stand came sobbing of women, who but a short time before had clapped their hands to the daring aviator as he arose from the field for his fatal flight.
“Of course the success of this attempt is contingent upon the kind of weather I find up there,” said Hoxsey just before he left the ground. “Some of the temperatures one encounters in the higher altitudes are simply beyond human endurance. But, if I can stand it and my motor works as well as it has been working, I’ll come down with a record of 12,000 feet or more.”
Even at that moment the wind attained a velocity that kept more cautious aviators on the ground. After he had ascended it gained rapidly in violence. Moreover, it created a “Swiss cheese” atmosphere, the most treacherous meteorological condition that man-birds have to contend with.
There is nothing by which it may be known why Hoxsey did not go higher than 7,742 feet, which his barograph showed he had attained, but he had apparently encountered at that altitude the same conflicting air currents that finally overcame him. Notwithstanding this, and with the same reckless daring he had displayed during the last week, he descended by a series of spiral glides, and was performing one of his thrilling rolling dips, when his biplane suddenly capsized and shot to earth.
Over and over the aëroplane turned as it fell, with a speed so swift that of all the thousands who saw the tragedy not one could tell what effort the aviator made to save himself. When the wreckage had been cleared sufficiently so that his body could be reached, he was found planted firmly in his seat, his arms around the levers. The fall telescoped the biplane.
The steel sprocket which drove the propellers lay across Hoxsey’s face, the motor resting upon the right side of his body. Every one of the ribs on that side was shattered into fragments. An iron upright, broken by the force of the crash, held the aviator’s body impaled upon its jagged point.
The stop watches of the judges in the stand registered the exact second of 2:12 o’clock when Hoxsey’s machine turned over and plunged in its fatal fall. The news of the tragedy was telegraphed over wires leading out of the press stand before the machine struck the ground.
(Enough of the published story, which filled more than three columns, is given here to indicate the detailed method of treatment. The death of Arch Hoxsey in itself was a big news story, of nation-wide interest. Its importance as news was enhanced by the fact that another noted aviator, only a few hours before, had met death in a similar tragic manner on another aviation field.)
[VII.] Story of a suicide printed because of the unusual means employed. (Names and addresses given here are fictitious.) From the New York World:
James Wilson, aged seventy, a photographer, committed suicide by drowning himself yesterday afternoon in a tank in his studio at No. 17 Blank street.
Wilson lived at No. 616 R street and was in the photograph business with his son. The studio is on the third floor and consists of three rooms.
Water leaking through his ceiling about 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon attracted the attention of Henry Smith, who has a printing shop on the floor underneath the studio. He sent a workman to investigate and when the man returned and said that Wilson’s door was locked Smith notified the police.
Patrolmen Stephens and Jones of the Blank Street Station broke open the Wilson studio door and in the rear room found water running over the sides of a tank used in developing pictures. This tank is zinc lined, is 2½ feet wide, 2 feet deep and 4 feet long, and stands 5 feet up from the floor, the upper edge being only 2 feet from the ceiling. Inside this tank was Wilson’s body.
Wilson was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 200 pounds. To reach the top of the tank he evidently stood on a sink beside it, but how he managed to crawl inside has puzzled the police. First, thinking that Wilson might have been trying to repair the tank, the police made a search for repairing tools, but found nothing of the kind. Wilson was dressed in his underclothing, and his outer garments were found hanging on hooks.
The tank had to be chopped down before the body could be removed and taken to the Morgue.
Mrs. Wilson said last night that her husband had acted queerly yesterday and seemed to be brooding because a man whom he had had in his employ for a number of years was to leave him at the end of the week. She said one of their sons committed suicide about seven years ago.
(Observe that the writer gives concrete details. Instead of saying, vaguely, that Wilson, a large man, drowned himself in a small tank, he gives Wilson’s height and weight and the exact dimensions of the tank.)
VIII. The following leads show how stories have been brought up to date:
1. ST. LOUIS, Dec. 9.—Colonel Abe Slupsky wears modestly to-day the metaphorical wreath of hops that goes with the championship in beer drinking.
When he drank a bottle of beer in the café at Hotel Jefferson last night it marked the completion of a task begun thirty days ago. Every day since then, Sundays included, nineteen bottles of beer preceded the good-night one. Etc.
2. Search in a snowstorm failed to-day to find the three robbers who held up three men and stole nearly $20,000 in cash and checks on the Egremont trolley extension yesterday. The amount taken was given out as $10,000, but the Woronoco Construction Company stated to-day that yesterday’s full pay roll was $20,000, and only a few men had been paid off when the hold-up occurred. Of this amount nearly half was in checks. Etc.
3. BELFAST, Dec. 10.—Political excitement is at fever heat to-day, following last night’s riots that resulted from several Orangemen voting for the Irish Nationalist candidates. Those so voting are being called traitors and their houses are under guard to-day to prevent violence being done them. Etc.
4. Several hundred college boys from the University of Blank crawled from the sheets this morning with dry throats, big heads and a universal tendency toward “never again.” For last night was “football night” and the college boys “did things up brown.” Etc.
5. John K. Smith, millionaire broker, following his fourth arrest in a month because of his strange antics with automobiles, is in the observation ward of the City Hospital pending an expert investigation as to his mental condition. Smith was arrested yesterday, etc.
6. PROVIDENCE, KY., Nov. 26.—It is believed to-day that the ten men entombed in Mine No. 3 of the Providence Coal Company by an explosion are dead.... A windy shot in the mine yesterday caused a terrific explosion, etc.
IX. Write a local fire story from the following notes, assuming it is to be printed in an evening paper in a town of about 20,000:
Home of A. B. Smith, 600 Converse avenue. Fire discovered at 1 A. M. by neighbors returning from theater. One of them broke in front door with a stick of cord wood and aroused the family, who were asleep on the second floor. Fire had started in the attic from crossed electric wires, and had burned down into the closet in the room occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Opening the closet to get some clothing, Smith was driven back by flames. His wife fainted and he carried her out. His hands and face were slightly burned. Two children, girls, 8 and 5, were carried out by neighbors. The house, two-story frame, burned rapidly. Only a part of the furniture on first floor was saved. Loss about $10,000, covered by insurance. Whole building was ablaze when the firemen arrived. Smith is cashier of the Second National Bank. Man who broke in door, A. L. Jones, a grocer, 604 Converse avenue.
X. Assuming that the death of Senator Clay (see [No. IV]) was first published in the morning papers, rewrite the story in 150 words for an evening paper.