SHIPS COLLIDE IN FOG
Boston Transcript
In a fog bank that had closed in only about twenty minutes before, the four-masted schooner Alma E. A. Holmes of Philadelphia was rammed and sunk by the Eastern Steamship Corporation steamer Belfast, just outside of Graves Light, shortly after six o’clock this morning. That no lives were lost was undoubtedly due to the action of Captain Frank Brown of the Belfast, who held the bow of the steamer in the hole in the schooner’s side until Captain Henry A. Smith and the eight members of the crew had climbed aboard the Belfast. Two minutes after the Belfast backed away, the Holmes, which had been struck on the starboard side between the fore and mainmasts, plunged bow first to the bottom, her stern lifting so high out of the water that about twenty feet of the keel was visible to those on the steamer.
The Belfast, with about 150 passengers, was on the way here from Bangor and Penobscot River ports. The weather had been thick all night, and Captain Brown had been constantly on duty in the pilot house. Shortly before the collision occurred those on the Belfast heard the schooner’s fog horn sounding at intervals. The steamer, too, was sounding her whistle, when out of the fog and directly ahead appeared the Holmes. At the first glimpse Captain Brown ordered the engines reversed. The distance between the vessels, however, was too short, and a moment later the sharp stem of the Belfast cut through the schooner’s side.
Frightened passengers hurried out on deck as they felt the shock of the collision, but within a few minutes they were assured by members of the crew that they were in no danger. Many, nevertheless, feared that the Belfast was going to sink. Meantime, Captain Brown held the steamer’s bow where it was, as he realized that the damage was serious and that the schooner, laden deep as she was with coal, would go down quickly if the sea was permitted to rush in.
Meanwhile, the skipper and crew of the schooner had got on deck, two or three of the sailors in scanty attire, as they did not have time to dress after being roused from their bunks. Captain Smith was on deck when the accident happened, and perceived when the steamer was sighted that the collision was bound to occur. He shouted for all of the crew to come on deck, and nearly all responded before the crash.
While passengers crowded forward on the decks of the Belfast, a ladder was let down to the deck of the schooner, and one after the other the crew of the Holmes climbed to safety. Captain Smith had some difficulty in impressing some of the crew with the necessity of quick action, one man being particularly stubborn. The rescue was accomplished in about ten minutes, according to Captain Brown of the Belfast, and then the steamer backed away. As she withdrew from the hole in the schooner’s side, it was seen that the Belfast’s stem had been twisted over to port. Otherwise she was apparently undamaged, and was not leaking, according to Captain Brown, after she docked at India Wharf.
The sight of the schooner going to the bottom was one that the passengers will remember. In Captain Brown’s opinion it was spectacular, in view of the manner in which the craft seemed to stand on her head, with the stern rearing almost straight out of the water, until she disappeared beneath the surface. Every one of the passengers praised Captain Brown highly for the manner in which he handled the situation and rescued the shipwrecked men. According to Captain Brown of the Belfast, the collision took place about four and one-half miles northeast of the dumping ground buoy outside of Graves Light, and the schooner sank in about twenty fathoms of water. Neither he nor Captain Smith cared to make any statement regarding responsibility for the accident. An investigation to determine this will be made by the United States Steamboat Inspectors.
The Alma E. A. Holmes was bound from Norfolk to Salem with 1819 tons of coal. She sailed from Norfolk a week ago Wednesday. She was a craft of 1208 tons gross register, 1069 net, 202 feet long, 41 feet beam and 18 feet deep, and was built at Camden, Me., in 1896. Joseph Holmes, Sr., of Toms River, N. J., was the owner.
BOAT BATTERED IN GALE
Philadelphia Ledger
ATLANTIC CITY, Nov. 20.—As gallant a fight as South Coast mariners have put up in many a day, with life as the stake, was made by the skipper and crew of the Drake, one of the fastest and smartest of the Inlet fishing fleet. Coast guards hardly knew her when she staggered into port this afternoon, battered and torn, a leaking scarecrow of her former trim self.
On board Mark Broome, master, Tomkins, the mate, and the nine members of the crew were in much the same state as their vessel. All hands were half dead from loss of sleep and completely worn out after a 36-hour battle with the gale that swept the Atlantic yesterday.
The Drake was making a full speed ahead plunge for Absecon late Thursday night, when the gale, ripping up the coast, struck her. There was nothing to do but turn and fly before the tempest, with everybody aboard hoping they might escape the treacherous shoals running miles seaward of Brigantine.
Then, to make matters worse, the Drake’s engine jammed and went out of commission and Tomkins, the mate, almost was swept overboard by a boom, while he clung to the bowsprit trying to pour oil on the waves. Broome, the skipper, saw his mate’s peril, and his presence of mind saved Tomkins from going into the sea.
It looked for a time last night, when the Drake sprung a leak, as if the staunch craft never would see harbor again. Everybody took turns at the pumps, except Broome, who stood over his flagging men, keeping them awake when exhaustion gripped them. The Drake was minus half her cargo of fish when she finally came in over the bar today.
FATAL SHIPWRECK
New York Times
ASTORIA, Ore., Sept. 19.—Between seventy and eighty men, women, and children, coastwise passengers and crew, were drowned late yesterday when the three-masted schooner Francis H. Leggett was pounded to pieces in a gale sixty miles from the mouth of the Columbia River.
Two men were rescued by passing steamers and carried to Astoria and Portland. They told how the sea tore the vessel to pieces, and how the passengers were drowned, a boat load at a time, as the lifeboats capsized, or met their fate a little later when the vessel turned over.
Alexander Farrell, a survivor, said that, at the height of the storm, Capt. J. Jensen of San Francisco, a passenger, who had lost his own ship six months ago and had been marooned for four months on an uninhabited island, went to the aid of Capt. Moro of the Leggett, took command of the passengers, and controlled them until he sank with the schooner.
The schooner’s wireless, on a route alive with ships, raised only the Japanese cruiser Idzumo, and sank hours before any craft reached her position. The steamer Beaver, which caught the Idzumo’s report of the Leggett’s distress, said that the Idzumo gave no position for the distressed vessel. She asked for more details, but got no response from the warship.
Plunging on her course for the Columbia River, the Beaver ran upon the oil tanker Buck, standing by a swirl of wreckage and timber which indicated where the Leggett had sunk. The Buck transferred Farrell to the Beaver for treatment. She remained for some time searching for bodies afloat, or for some other men, who, like Farrell, might have been fortunate enough to seize a bit of lumber and strong enough to cling to it for many hours in the icy water.
The other rescued passenger, George H. Pullman of Winnipeg, Canada, is on board the Buck, which now is lying off the Columbia bar awaiting calmer weather before crossing in.
It is believed that Capt. Moro of the Leggett was washed overboard shortly before the ship sank, for it was Capt. Jensen, Farrell said, who was in charge of a futile attempt to launch two lifeboats, which foundered as soon as they struck the water.
Farrell, who had recovered considerably tonight from his exhaustion, said that the Leggett carried a full list of passengers, between forty and fifty, while the crew numbered about twenty-five. Among the passengers were six women, a girl and a boy, including the Captain’s wife, the mate’s wife, and the wife of Capt. Anderson of the schooner Carrie Dove.
“We left Grey’s Harbor Wednesday morning,” said Farrell. “Later the sea became rough. The Leggett began to pound heavily and the Captain gave orders to jettison the deck load. Then the seas swept off the hatches, and the hold began to fill. Capt. Jensen ordered the passengers into their cabins, and many were still there when the boat went down.
“When it was seen that there was no hope for the vessel, Capt. Jensen ordered the lifeboats launched. In the first boat there were thirty persons, two of whom were women. There were only six women on board, and the other four were not at that end of the ship when the boat was launched.
“As soon as the boat struck the water it capsized, and all the occupants were thrown into the sea and drowned.
“A few minutes later an attempt was made to launch the second lifeboat. It contained four women and their husbands. The boat met the same fate as the other boat.
“I was standing on the bridge when the ship went down. The boat capsized as she sank. I don’t know how long I was under water, but when I came to the top I grabbed a railroad tie and hung on. The wireless operator was also hanging to the tie. I saw men sinking all around me, but could not hear their cries owing to the screeching gale.
“It soon became dark, but it was 1 o’clock in the morning when the Beaver picked me up. The wireless operator clung to the tie with me for several hours, and then, benumbed by cold, he dropped off. No one was to blame for the wreck. The boat was unable to stand the storm.”
The Leggett was a three-masted schooner of 1,606 tons gross registry and a capacity of 1,500,000 feet of lumber. She was operated by the Charles R. McCormick Company of San Francisco.
Note—The following two stories illustrate different arrangements of the same material and were probably telegraphed by different news associations.
EXPLOSION IN MINE
(1)
San Francisco Examiner
MARIANNA (Pa.), November 28.—Within three minutes after a State mine inspector and the mine superintendent had returned from an inspection of the district, the model Marianna mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company was blown up by an explosion to-day.
At midnight the rescuers, penetrating through a portion of the shaft, came upon the bodies of 142 men, most of whom had been killed instantaneously by the debris flung upon them by the explosion. Many of the remains were badly mangled. Eighteen bodies were immediately carried to the top of the shaft, where they were encoffined. Six others, killed at the top of the shaft, had been previously recovered. Whether any more remain in the wrecked mine will not be known until morning.
When she learned that her husband was among the dead, Mrs. Joseph Jones broke through the guard of fifty State constabulary and attempted to dash herself to the bottom of the mine. She was caught and restrained just as she was about to make the fatal jump. Mrs. George Acker became violently insane when she heard that her husband was in the mine, and was arrested and placed under restraint.
At 1 o’clock Peter Arnold, an American, was brought out of the Rachel shaft alive. Joseph Kearney, one of the rescuers, reported that others were living.
The Marianna mine, which had been in operation less than three months, was considered the model mine of the world. Every device known to modern invention had been installed to prevent just such a tragedy as occurred to-day. But, wrecked by a mysterious explosion, the very machinery which was to have made accident impossible hampered the rescuers at their work. They did not understand the wonderful mechanism which bolstered the great mine with such a network of contrivances, and they were delayed in the attempt to bore through to the bodies of the men lying dead in the bottom of the shaft.
The explosion came just before the noon hour in the Rachel shaft. It was so terrific that the blast, blowing up the whole length of the deep shaft, tore loose the giant elevator cage at the surface of the mine and hurled it 300 feet away.
Two men were in the cage at the time. Both were instantly killed, the head of one of them being literally blown off.
Immediately following the explosion, rescuers began frantically to burrow at the mouth of the mine in a futile effort to dig down through the tremendous masses of coal that blocked the upper reaches of the shaft, while other rescuers, headed by President John K. Jones, of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company, rushed to the scene in special trains from Pittsburg and Monongahela with the latest appliances, which were erected at the head of the shaft to bore to the entombed men.
Five thousand women and children and miners thronged the mouth of the mine, the former weeping piteously and pleading for the rescue of their fathers or brothers.
The officials of the mine are in a pitiful condition. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make the Marianna fireproof, and experts have assured them that such a disaster as occurred to-day was impossible. In the excitement and panic it is impossible thus far to learn the names of the victims. But the books of the company indicate that the majority of the 275 buried in the Rachel are Americans and that most of the others are English miners imported by the company two months ago to work the richest shafts.
(2)
Chicago Record-Herald
PITTSBURG, Nov. 28.—Two hundred and seventy-five men, a majority of them Americans, are believed all to have perished in an explosion which wrecked the mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company at Marianna, Washington County, shortly before noon to-day. Marianna is considered the model mining town of the world, and the mine itself was claimed to be as nearly perfect in equipment as modern science could devise.
Since the blast entombed all the men in the mine, smoke has been issuing from the shaft, showing that the workings are afire, and rescuers who entered were compelled, after progressing only a short distance, to retreat on account of the intense heat.
The explosion happened at 11:30 o’clock this morning, when the full force was at work. The explosion was terrific, and if all in the mine were not mangled by its force, it seems certain that they perished in the subsequent fire or were suffocated by the deadly fumes.
The force of the explosion can be imagined when it is known that the heavy iron cage which carried the men from the surface to the workings was blown 300 feet away from the mouth of the shaft. Two men who were in the cage at the time were killed, the head of one of them being blown off.
Three foreigners who were at the mouth of the mine when the explosion occurred are in the hospital in a critical condition from injuries received when the mine cage was blown out of the shaft. They also inhaled the poisonous fumes.
The fanhouse was partly demolished and the fans stopped for over an hour.
The explosion was in shaft No. 2. The only way to reach the workings is through that shaft, as shaft No. 1 is not completed. Some of the officials of the coal company believe it will be necessary to dig through 800 feet of solid coal before they can reach the workings.
State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman Kennedy had just completed a two days’ examination of the mine, and had come from the mine only three minutes before the explosion occurred.
When the town was shaken by the blast, all the people rushed from their houses. Learning of the extent of the disaster, the members of the families of the doomed men rushed to the mouth of the mine, and a pathetic scene followed. Wives, mothers and relatives of the men are gathered about, and their cries are pitiful.
It is said there is a large gas well in the vicinity of the mine. Whether the gas from this well was communicated to the mine and became ignited, or whether powder and dynamite used for blasting purposes exploded, cannot now be ascertained.
Rushing as fast as steam could carry them, special trains from this city and Monongahela went to the scene of the disaster. On them were officials of the coal company and many prominent miners who are considered experts in the work of rescue. The latest appliances from the new United States laboratory in this city, which were recently tested before foreign and American experts, for the saving of life in mine explosions, were hurried to the mine.
John H. Jones, president of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company, was almost a physical wreck when he learned of the accident. He trembled in every limb and could scarcely speak. Accompanied by other officials of the company, and by J. W. Paul of the United States mine testing station located here, President Jones went at once to the scene in a special train.
Two assistants accompanied Mr. Paul, carrying patented helmets that make work possible in the most dangerous mine. With these men Mr. Paul expected to be able to save many lives.
Early reports as to the number of victims of the disaster varied greatly. The mine officials first claimed that not more than 100 men could have been caught, but it now is certain that 275 were at work at the time and that none in the shaft escaped.
State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman Kennedy, who had just completed a two days’ examination of the mine, declared that they had found it in perfect condition. At the present time, they say, it is impossible to state whether the explosion was caused by gas or by a powder explosion. Mr. Jones, president of the company, stated that almost the entire force of men were in the mine at the time of the explosion, but he did not know the full extent of the casualties.
Marianna was built recently by the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company. It necessitated a great outlay of money, as it was the intention to make the mine up to date and the living conditions of the miners the same as could be secured in a large city. The houses were of brick construction, and each contained a bathroom. When completed the town was said by foreign and American mine officials to be the most perfect mining town in the world.
ENTOMBED MINERS
Kansas City Times
Joplin, Mo., June 18.—The occasional “rap-rap-rap” which has encouraged the men who are battling with the tons of rock and earth imprisoning two men in the Longacre-Chapman mine ceased yesterday afternoon. Daniel Hardendorf and Reed Taylor, the men who are buried, have now been in the mine since 6 o’clock last Friday night. There is hope yet for their rescue, but that hope grows weaker as the night wears on.
The best shovelers in the Joplin district, 150 of them, are working quietly, feverishly, knowing that every minute lost means that much less chance of rescuing the men. They work with strained nerves, in squads of eight which enter the shaft, then come up at the end of two hours completely exhausted.
A crowd of about five hundred persons, miners, friends and relatives, are at the mouth of the shaft. It’s a strange, pathetic crowd, alternately weeping and praying.
Through this crowd tonight four big, pale men elbowed their way. They were William Lester, Roy Woodmansee, Edward Spencer and A. H. Harwood, miners who were taken from the shaft Tuesday night after having been entombed themselves four days in another part of the mine. They pleaded to be allowed to help in the rescue work.
“Let us save them. It’s hell down there, poor fellows,” one said grimly.
A tragic figure in the crowd is Mrs. Hardendorf, wife of one of the entombed men. As the shifts of men go down she stands by and pleads with them to exert every effort. When the men, exhausted by their efforts, come up to be relieved, she works with the other women, passing around coffee and food.
Thirty-five feet of rock and earth separate the entombed miners from liberty. The two men have been without food, water or air more than eight days now. When the tapping ceased yesterday afternoon many shook their heads.
“They are dead,” they say sadly.
But the crowd about the shaft never diminishes and the shovelers never quit.
“Maybe they have gone farther into the drift to get better air,” some say hopefully.
About $1,500 has been raised by popular subscriptions to pay the men who are helping in the rescue work. The amount soon will be increased.
Experienced miners say it will be late Saturday night or early Sunday morning before the tons of rocks and earth can be shoveled away. If the buried miners have fainted from lack of air, there is little hope of reaching them alive. But if they have gone back farther in the drift they can be saved.
FALL FROM SCAFFOLD
New York Times
Because he had refused to take a seriously injured man in his automobile to St. Luke’s Hospital yesterday afternoon, the chauffeur of a machine standing outside of South Field, opposite Columbia University Library, was set upon by a crowd of Yale and Columbia University students and threatened with bodily injury unless he did so. Thoroughly frightened, the chauffeur consented to take the injured man to the hospital, where his condition is said to be serious.
The injured man was Peter Bunn, a bricklayer, of No. 231 East 80th street, who was working on Kent Hall, a new Columbia University building, at 116th street and Amsterdam avenue. Bunn and his brother John were on a scaffolding on the third floor of the building, overlooking South Field, the athletic field of the university, where Yale and Columbia were playing a game of baseball.
As the crowds began to leave the field, the two men shouted from their high perch and imitated the cheers of the students. While they were jumping about on the platform of the scaffold, it swung far out from the wall, and Peter fell to the ground.
TWO BOYS DROWN
Chicago Tribune
Joseph Tordio, 19 years old, of 920 Townsend street, tried to save Albert Arrigo, 8 years old, of 457 West Superior street, from drowning in the north branch of the river at Superior street last night. Both drowned.
Arrigo, a mere stripling, was fishing. He lost his balance and toppled from the pier. Screams of his brother, Charles, 12 years old, attracted Tordio. He threw off his shoes, coat, and hat and jumped in. For fifteen minutes the battle with death ran on.
Tordio did not know the science of rescuing a drowning person. He might have stunned the boy and got back to the pier. But he merely used his muscle. Then the little boy, in a death grapple, tightened his arms around Tordio like two small bands of steel.
The larger boy tired. The murky water ran over his face. For an instant he thought he might lose. That was his undoing. Fear unnerved him. He fought in a frenzy. They went down together, the younger boy strangling but still clasping his two small bands of steel around the rescuer’s body.
They came up, or Tordio’s face did. With the terror of death on him, Tordio made a last desperate effort. It failed. He opened his mouth to call for help, but the voice was drowned with the gurgling water. He quit. His hands went up in a last act of despair. Then they went down. In a moment there was nothing on the water at that point save a few tiny waves and a few bubbles.
The police came with grappling hooks. The body of little Arrigo was recovered. The doctors worked for an hour to drive air back into the water bloated lungs. It was futile.
Tordio’s body is still on the floor of the river somewhere. He did not know the boy he tried to save.
INVESTIGATION OF CAUSE OF DROWNING
Boston Herald
The city authorities, the police and the district attorney have been asked to investigate conditions at the deserted wharf on Albany street at the foot of Union Park where one boy was drowned on Tuesday afternoon and another narrowly escaped drowning on the morning of the same day. Residents of the neighborhood say that in the last decade the place has claimed no less than seven victims and has been the scene of a score of accidents more or less serious.
So far no one directly responsible for the recurring fatalities has been found. The premises are private property, the boys who frequent the place are trespassers under the law, the city believes that it has no right to interfere and the police of the district say that the only way they could deal with the situation would be to have an officer stationed on the ground day and night.
With a frontage of some 200 feet on Albany street the lot extends back over a grass-grown area about 50 feet to the South bay. At the edge of the water are the ruins of an old pier, a stretch of broken boards and a group of broken piles.
The whole place is absolutely open to the street and is unguarded by fence or barrier of any kind. It has all the attractions of a playground and swimming hole and is doubly alluring to the lads of the neighborhood owing to the fact that they have been warned off from time to time by the police.
All during the summer scores of boys of all ages, but chiefly between 5 and 14 years, haunt the old wharf, jumping from pile to pile or taking an occasional dip when the officer on the beat is not looking. From the shore the channel shelves down sharply to a depth of about 30 feet.
The nature of the danger was shown Tuesday afternoon. Alexander Penney, the 7-year-old son of Alexander Penney of 114 Maiden street, while playing fireman with several companions among the piles, slipped and fell into the water. His body disappeared and was not found until it was picked up yesterday morning near the Dover street bridge by the crew of the policeboat Watchman.
In the morning of the same day Arthur York, 5 years old, of Albany street, stumbled overboard and was rescued with considerable difficulty by John Melanphy, who was forced to dive before he could bring the boy to the surface.
Similar accidents have happened in the past with such frequency that the citizens of the neighborhood are demanding that some action be taken to close the wharf and keep the children away from it. Joseph E. Ferreira of 1 Pelham street, a business man, well known politically in the section, circulated a petition asking the city to take action. There were over 250 signers, but when the petition was presented to the mayor it was found that the city had no legal right to act. Mr. Ferreira has since appealed to the district attorney and to the police in an attempt to have the wharf fenced in.
Mayor Fitzgerald paid a personal visit to the scene of Tuesday’s accidents yesterday morning. He looked over the ground carefully and interviewed numerous small boys who had been attracted to the spot. Several of them were playing about the wharf end, apparently unmindful of the danger.
“The situation here is a deplorable one,” said Mayor Fitzgerald, “but up to the present I have been unable to discover any way in which the city can act. The premises are privately owned, and the city, so far as I am informed, has no right to fence the place in or otherwise block it from the street.
“Something should be done, however, to prevent the recurrence of drowning accidents. It would seem that much of the trouble would be obviated if the owners would consent to erect a high board fence. I believe also that the police might be a bit more vigilant, although I realize that the only sure way to keep boys off a lot like this would be to have an officer stationed here all the time.
“The place as it stands is a temptation to every child who loves the water. In the hot weather it is bound to lure about every healthy boy in the vicinity. If funds were available, I should suggest that the happiest solution of the difficulty would be for the city to take the land over and transform it into a bathing park. The neighborhood is crowded and the nearest public bathing place is at Dover street.
“The accident calls attention to the relatively small number of our boys that can swim. I have always advocated swimming instruction for our children, and the fatality of Tuesday only emphasizes the need of it.”
Mayor Fitzgerald allowed himself to be photographed at the spot where the accident occurred, and as he did so seven urchins grouped themselves about him. Six of them were under 10 years and the other 13 years old.
“How many of you boys can swim?” asked the mayor.
The six younger boys shook their heads and the oldest admitted that he could “a little.”
“That is a fair example of conditions,” said Mayor Fitzgerald, “and a good argument against allowing a place like this to exist.”
The property has been idle for a number of years and is said to have been the subject of litigation. The assessors’ books give the owners of the property as Grant and Alice Nilson, neither of whom is a resident of Boston.
If the owners do not take measures to shut the old wharf from the street, Mr. Ferreira and a number of other South End residents say they will appeal to the courts in an effort to secure a remedy.
BOY SAVES DROWNING MAN
New York World
Johnny Donivan, fifteen years old, No. 2005 Second avenue, went down to the Battery yesterday to look for a job, and the only job he found was to save a man from drowning. Johnny had no objection to saving a drowning man, but was much disappointed at not finding work, for his father has been out of a job since last Christmas, and there are eight in the family.
Daniel Wilson, who has been a deep-sea fireman, went to sleep on a pier and rolled off into the bay, striking his head on a rock. Then he floated seaward.
Johnny Donivan jumped in after Wilson. With both hands the fireman grabbed the boy so tightly around the throat that he almost squeezed the breath out of him.
Johnny seized the man around the waist, was pulled under water twice, but swam with Wilson to the pier, where the Liberty Island steamer makes fast. Policeman Joseph Murry hauled them out.
John Brown, watchman in the Barge Office, lent Johnny Donivan his old shirt and trousers while the boy’s raiment was drying in the sunshine. Johnny said he had a place in a picture frame store in Beaver street until eight weeks ago when he was let out. The only one in the family working is one of Johnny’s sisters, and she earns $3 a week as a dressmaker’s apprentice. A year ago he dived into the East River at One Hundred and Second street and saved a ten-year-old boy from drowning. On that occasion a policeman gave him five cents so he wouldn’t have to walk home.
BABY DROWNS
Brooklyn Eagle
Mrs. Rose Stock left her rooms, on the second floor of 550 South avenue, at 10 o’clock this morning to step across the street to make some purchases at a grocery store. As she closed the door, the baby, Harriet, 3 months old, was sleeping quietly in its crib, and Louis, 5 years old, with Dorothy, 3 years old, her other children, were playing.
Scarcely had the mother gone when an idea seized one of the two. It was probably Louis, although he credited Dorothy with it when asked about it. Why not take the baby out of its crib and give it a bath in the tub, as they had seen mother do so often? It was a brilliant thought. So Louis went and fetched the baby and took it to the bathroom.
The tub was full of water and clothes, for Mrs. Stock had been washing there the night before, and had not finished soaking the clothes. They set the baby in the water, which was about a foot deep. The baby gasped, gurgled and was still. It did not appear to enter into the spirit of the game at all.
Louis had never seen the baby so quiet before when its mother bathed it. He could not quite make out just what was wrong, but a vague foreboding that he had done something he ought not to came over him. He ran out into the hall and met his mother returning with her arms laden with groceries for the dinner hour.
“Oh, mama!” he cried, “the baby is in the water.”
Mrs. Stock ran up the stairs, but before she got there Mrs. Rose Leiser, a next-door neighbor, had lifted little Harriet out of the tub and laid her on the bed.
Dr. Joseph Strong of 566 Waite avenue was called in and tried artificial respiration. Every time he moved the little arms a jet of water gushed from the baby’s mouth. His efforts were in vain.
When a reporter called at the little home some time later, Mrs. Stock was seated in one room surrounded by a semicircle of sympathizing neighbors, and in the next room Louis, who has sunny Lord Fauntleroy curls and a dimpled face, was down on his knees looking through a photograph album. He looked up at the visitor with steady blue eyes and a smile when he was asked who put the baby in the water.
“Dorey did,” he replied.
“Where is the baby now?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s on the bed. It’s sleeping.”
Then he turned to his photograph album, but when a search was made for little Dorothy, he led the way up the stairs and showed the visitor how to open the door.
Brown-haired Dorothy, with ear-rings in her ears, hid her face behind the skirts of a neighbor. She thought the man who came was going to take her away somewhere, and she hung her head.
“Louis put the baby in the water,” she said. That was all she seemed to know about it. Louis laughed and went back to his album. He could not understand why his mother was crying so in the next room. Wasn’t the baby on the bed just as she had left it?
SHOOTING ACCIDENT
Chicago Tribune
Elgin, Ill., Oct. 28—[Special.]—Walter Black, 17 year old son of August Black of 416 Carroll street, came home from a hunting trip at 7 o’clock tonight and stood his single barrel shotgun up in a corner of the kitchen.
“Big bruvver’s a sojer,” lisped Harold Black, 5 years old.
“Naw, there ain’t any war in Elgin,” replied August, aged 11.
Walter went upstairs to change his clothing. Harold went to the corner and attempted to drag the heavy gun along.
“Le’s play sojers,” he said.
“You ain’t big enough to carry the gun,” retorted August. “Let me take it.”
August took the gun, swung it across his shoulder, and marched around the kitchen shouting “Hep! Hep!” with Harold composing the rear guard of the army.
“Now we’re at the war,” sang out August. He turned suddenly and pointed the weapon at Harold, his finger on the trigger. There was a roar and a spit of flame. The muzzle was only a few inches from the head of the younger boy. He fell dead with the whole charge in his head.
Mrs. Black ran to the kitchen and fainted when she saw what had happened. An inquest will be held tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.
Note—The following three stories published in Milwaukee evening papers should be compared as different versions of the same incident in a suburb.
SEARCH FOR LOST CHILD
(1)
Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin
WEST ALLIS, Oct. 21.—After 2000 residents of West Allis had spent an entire night searching for Walter, the 18-months’-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong, 5402 Fargo avenue, the little fellow was found sleeping in a coal bin in the basement of the home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, Fifty-fourth and Fargo avenues.
The little lad had wandered away from his father’s yard on Friday afternoon and reached the yard of Mrs. Bitter. While at play near a basement window he probably tumbled through to the coal below.
There he slept soundly until early this morning, when he was found by Mrs. Bitter when she went to the basement to clean out the bin. She picked the child up and carried him in her arms to the home of the distracted mother, who had been waiting and watching all through the night for the return of her baby.
With a cry of joy she seized him and clasped him to her breast and imprinted kiss after kiss upon his face. The father, who, with a party of neighbors, had been searching every corner of the village, was notified and hurried to his home to see his boy.
Walter was playing on Friday afternoon with his brother Willie in the back yard of the home. About 3 o’clock Willie went into the house, and his mother asked where Walter was. The brother told her that he was playing in the yard. She was entertaining visitors and forgot about the lad until after 4 o’clock.
When she went into the yard, the boy was not there. She searched through the neighborhood for a time and then notified her husband, who works at the Allis-Chalmers plant. He organized a searching party and spent the entire night with almost 2000 others in trying to locate the baby.
At first it was feared that the child had been kidnaped, as a man with a young child was seen driving down Fargo avenue shortly after the Strong child was missed by the mother.
(2)
Milwaukee News
He was such a little chap—only 18 months old—and when he started out yesterday to take his pedestrian exercises, in which he had not progressed very far, he met with a mishap in tumbling through the basement window of a neighbor’s house into the coal bin.
His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong, Fiftyfourth and Fargo avenues, called him Bootsie. When Bootsie found himself in a pile of coal, it tickled his childish fancy to learn what beautiful black marks the coal made on his hands.
He tired of playing with the coal, rolled over and went sound asleep. Then the trouble started. An older brother who had been left in the yard to watch the baby, came into the house alone.
“Where’s Bootsie?” the mother asked.
The little fellow shook his head and said he didn’t know. The mother ran to the yard. No Bootsie was in sight. Inquiries were made among the neighbors. Then the news of the mysterious disappearance of Bootsie traveled from mouth to mouth until West Allis became aroused.
Deputy sheriffs got busy; the West Allis police force was brought out; neighbors, relatives and friends to the number of almost 1,000 gathered near the home.
The father came home to supper, learned of his son’s disappearance and was puzzled. Mrs. Strong wept and at times was on the verge of hysteria. Women called and tried to comfort her.
Then a searching party of many hundred started over the territory, “with a fine tooth comb,” the police said, to look for Bootsie.
Ponds in the neighborhood were dragged, and until far into the night, lanterns could be seen bobbing over the fields, going here, there, everywhere, searching for Bootsie Walter Strong, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Strong.
Then someone brought in a clew. An evil-looking man with a black mustache and smoking a cigarette was seen driving through West Allis about 6 o’clock in the evening. He had a child on his knees.
The child answered the description of Bootsie. He was crying and struggling to get away. The black mustached man leered at people in driving by and disappeared.
The child had been kidnaped! There was no use denying it. Had not the clew been almost conclusive? By midnight the search for Bootsie had been abandoned. Searchers returned home disheartened.
About 5 o’clock this morning Mrs. Johanna Bitter, who lives at 5418 Fargo avenue on property adjoining the Strong home, went to the basement to get some potatoes.
There on top of the coal pile was Bootsie—he of the mysterious disappearance—sound asleep, with his mouth open. The child was carried home by Mrs. Bitter, and when the crowd of last night’s searchers called at the Strong home again this morning, it was met by the wide-eyed Bootsie, munching on a cookie, with evidence of coal dust still lingering in his golden hair.
(3)
Milwaukee Journal
If Walter Strong, 18 months, 5402 Fargo-av, West Allis, were to try and make up during the next four years the sleep that he caused to be lost Friday night, he would fail. It would be impossible because 2,000 nights o’ sleep went a-glimmering in the twelve hours of darkness.
But that doesn’t worry Walter Strong, 18 months. Not at all. That sleep didn’t belong to him, but was the property of 2,000 neighbors.
Friday afternoon, when the baby’s father, Ernest Strong, was at work in the Allis-Chalmers plant and his mother, Mrs. Anna Strong, was busy with her household duties, young Walter toddled out into the yard in front of his home. That yard, the street beyond and the highways and byways that Walter could indistinctly see stretching out before him, were to him as were the unexplored new worlds to Columbus.
It was 3 p. m. when Walter began his journey. At 6 p. m. he had not returned. Strong had come home; the mother had noticed that her baby was missing, and a search was begun. At 9 p. m. Walter was still missing. An alarm was spread in the neighborhood.
Then the search began. The good neighbors of West Allis scurried to and fro, listening to stories of kidnaping, following various clews, telling of strange men seen in the neighborhood and, altogether, creating intense excitement. This lasted until 6 a. m. Saturday.
What Baby Walter thought as he toddled out of his yard cannot be told, for Walter is unable to say. He walked up Fargo-av until he observed a peculiar—to him—scene. To most of us it would have been an ordinary cottage at 5418 Fargo-av, the home of Mrs. Johanna Bitter, but to Walter there was a great cavern underneath a pile of wood. This cavern had a screen across the mouth, and, peering through, Walter could see a pile of dark stuff. To others that would have been a cellar filled with coal.
Walter was highly interested in his discovery and began to pry at the screen. Ah! the screen moved! It opened! Walter pushed his head inside and gazed about. Then he tumbled in.
Perhaps he cried a little when he fell, but if he did no one heard him. He soon reconciled himself to his imprisonment and began playing with objects at hand. Soon, however, he became sleepy and what makes a better bed than a large pile of potato sacks?
So while his frantic parents and the neighbors were searching for him, Baby Walter slept peacefully within a few hundred feet of home and mother.
Early Saturday Mrs. Bitter, who lives alone, entered her cellar to get some potatoes for breakfast. She carried no light, and when she neared the bin, stumbled over the sacks. The baby cried out. That ended his trip.
When Baby Walter sat on his father’s knee Saturday morning calmly munching a biscuit, he blinked and smiled. The father and mother were busy thanking the neighbors for their interest and assistance.
CHAPTER IV
POLICE NEWS AND CRIME
Type of story. Since police news ranges from slight misdemeanors to the most serious of crimes such as murder and suicide, it offers widely different material for news stories. Because of the general interest in the material with which stories of crime deal, the purely informative story is sufficient in itself to insure reading (cf. “[Burglary],” p. 54, and “Murder of Business Man,” p. 59). The strong personal element in stories of wrong-doing gives occasion for effective human interest presentation in the informative story (cf. “[Forgery],” p. 49, and “[Street Car Bandit],” p. 57). Amusing aspects of minor offenses, and even of burglary, hold-ups, or fraud, often furnish inspiration for humorous treatment (cf. “[Charged with Intoxication],” p. 48, and “[Hold-up],” p. 57).
Purpose. In no other kind of news should the effect of the story on the reader receive more careful consideration than in news of crime. The evil effects of news stories of criminal acts on many readers have already been pointed out ([cf. p. 8]). That these destructive influences can be offset to a considerable extent by constructive handling of news has also been shown. In order that the crime story may have a deterrent effect, the crime must be shown to be wrong, even though the wrong-doer deserves some sympathy. The results of wrong-doing, not only in the form of legal punishment imposed but in the remorse and the pangs of guilty conscience that the wrong-doer suffers, as well as in the disgrace that he brings to others through his criminal acts, when emphasized in news stories tend to deter others from risking the dangers of such penalties.
Constructive presentation of crime news may also include emphasis on underlying causes and responsibility, especially when these can be traced to bad conditions in the community or in society as a whole, since such emphasis leads readers to consider the necessity for changing the conditions that are directly or indirectly responsible for the criminal acts. In so far as the criminal is the victim of these circumstances it may be legitimate to create a sympathetic understanding of his act (cf. “[Hold-up],” p. 56, and “[Story of Escaped Convict],” p. 68).
A danger in writing stories of crime lies in creating sympathy for the undeserving wrong-doer by a sentimental treatment of him and his act. By making more or less of a hero of him, news stories may lead undiscriminating readers to regard him and his crime as not unworthy of emulation. There is also a temptation in writing crime stories to sacrifice truth and accuracy of detail in order to secure greater picturesqueness or stronger dramatic situations, but such treatment is an indefensible deviation from the fundamental duty of presenting the news fairly and accurately.
Whatever influence a story of crime may have on the reader should be the result of the reporter’s selection and presentation of the actual facts. Moralizing or “editorializing” concerning the facts is not only unnecessary but undesirable in news stories.
Treatment. Dramatic narrative and vivid description, when true to the facts of the news, are both legitimate and commendable. It is important to keep consistently to one point of view in arranging and presenting the details, particularly in constructive stories. Available material for making the narration and the description effective includes confessions, interviews with witnesses and persons involved, and clues to the identity of the perpetrator or to the solution of any mysterious phases of the crime. Fairness requires that persons accused of wrong-doing as well as their accusers be given a hearing in news stories. It must also be remembered that a person accused of crime is not a criminal unless he has been convicted; until he has been found guilty, he is described as an “alleged” criminal, or is said to be “charged” with the crime.
Contents. In police news and crime stories details of significance are: (1) number of lives destroyed or endangered; (2) names of victims; (3) names of persons charged with the crime; (4) arrests of suspects and detention of witnesses; (5) clues to the identity of the perpetrators when these are not known; (6) causes, motives, and responsibility, known or conjectured; (7) amount and character of loss; (8) methods employed in commission of the crime; (9) measures to prevent similar crimes.