Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1883 — A HIDEOUS SIGHT. [ARTICLE]

A HIDEOUS SIGHT.

Removal of the Bodies from the Diamond Mine—The Remain* in a Horrible Condition. Correspondents of the Chicago papers at Braidwood, under date of March 28, give the following particulars of tite recovery of the bodies of the miners overwhelmed by the floodin the Diamond mine: The workmen at the DiNflktd mine were engaged ail night bodies of the dead. The first two corpses were brought into the chill, night air at Fully 500 persons of both sexes werflp hovering about the entrance to the lEKerranean charnel-house, anxiously hoping that some near and dear one would be Drought up first. Mothers who had lost sons, and young wives were standing shivering « the cold, with their little children clinging to their skirts and whimpering. There was no noise but that made bv the pumping and hoisting machinery. The tumbling of the water from the pumps kept up a monotonous swish as it struck bowlders on the outside and trickled off toward the overflowed prairie, whence it had rushed into the mine. The water was black from contact with the walls of coal, and seemed tinged with a more somber hue by the flickering torches of the watchers and workmen. The miners who were engaged in exhuming the bodies would occusionaHy come to the surface to breathe fresh air ana get relief from the oppressive nausea of the mine. In their mining-clothes, their faces seamed with coal-dust, and the little lanterns attached to their heads, these laborers among the dead looked weird and almpst terrible In the darkness.

The scene was indeed a ghastly one. Sobs were breaking from the women, and strong men spoke with bated breath in the presence of the first body brought out. The hoisting apparatus had scarcely deposited the blackened remains upon the landing when the expectant crowed swayed forward, hoping to get a glimpse of the horrible sight It was a horrible sight, and required a stout heart to look' upon it unmoved. For thirty-eight days the bodies had remained underground in the water, and decomposition had set in and was already in an advanced stage It was expected that the corpses would be putrid, Put putrefaction was not yet thorough, and they were easily handled. The first body was hoisted up In a large oblong box and hurried into a shanty thirty feet distant from the hole, where the Coroner and the jury and a few others waited to view the remains and Identify them if possible. The box was opened and the orowd gazed upon the sickening sight The face was black as ink, as was the entire body, and it seemed impossible to recognize in the disfigured heap of clay the man who had been represented by it The clothing alone served as a mark of recognition, and the corpse was alleged to be P. H. Wall Soon another body came up, and the creaking of the machinery continued until daylight dawned, when fifteen had been brought to the surface As fast as one body was identified it was placed in a coffin and removed a short distance to the flat-cars, to be transported to Braidwood The identification in a number of instances was necessarily imperfect, because of the disfiguration of some of the bodies and the advanced stage of decomposition. The scene in here was sickening. The saturated remains were exposed for a few minutes and eagerly gazed upon by bereaved relativea No women were permitted within the morgue. The bodies were oontorted into all manner of shapes, some of them almost doubled up, with the heads stiffened down upon the breast. One man had his hands uplifted, as if to protect himself from some impending blow. He had raised them to ward off death, and when it came it left him BtiU appealing. The eyes of nearly all were gone, the noses flattened close to the face, which in a great many cases were laid bare to the cheek bones Great gashes caused by falling stones rendered recognition of a'few an absolute impossibility. The lips, thickened into exaggerated unnaturalness, the matted hair, corroded hands, and blackened faces and limbs had so disguised all of the bodies that recognition was more guess-work than certainty. As an evidence of this uncertainty, Mr. Pearsons, who had lost three sons in the mine, was brought in to identify one of the corpses that it had been insisted was one of his boya The old man looked with quivering lips upon the hideous spectacle, and turned awav murmuring: “It’s not him! It’s not him!” There was a weight of woe in these words tremulously spoken by a father who had for weeks been tutoring himself to bear the sight of his dead when they were brought to him. The positivenesa of the parent did not convince those who had known the young man intimately, but the father’s verdict was accepted and the Coroner recorded “unknown.’’ * The only one brought out up to 10 o’clock in the morning who was unanimously identified was a young man named John Bovd. He was known by bis clothing, and this became the only approximate means of identification. One man was known by a patch on his boots, another by a patch on his shirt, and a third by a button on his drawers A solitary white button on this garment satisfied the man’s wife, who had sewed it on, that the putrid corpse, bearingno semblance to a man, was her husband There may have been other men with similar buttons on their under-garments, but the bereaved heart was satisfied and the re mains were identified.

As sooif as the bodies were recognized, or admitted to be unrecognizable, they were taken from the plain wooden boxes and incased in a coffin. The coffins were ranged around the room, and were of neat imitation mahogany. Each coffin was supplied with a glass covering at the head, permitting the upper portion of the body to be seen without unscrewing the lid As soon as the coffin bearing a body was placed on a fiat-car the women and those not allowed in the morgue would olamber up the car and peer into it All morning and all day the scene around the funeral cars was a pitiable one. The crowd kept steadily increasing until 500 persons were clustered together near the tracka Wails came from the women, heart-broken sobs betokening untold woe, and stout-hearted men who had worked in the mine, and had saved themselves almost by miracles from the awiul rush of wa ers, wept in company on looking at the crumbling eJay. Tears trickled down rugged cheeks, and fond mothers, wives, and sisters wrung their hands in tearless grief. A wife would be told that her husband lay in a certain coffin, but, look ever so hard, there was nothing to tell her that they were right By 10 o’clock seventeen bodies had been recovered, and these were placed upon the funeral train of three passenger cars draped in mourning and taken to Braidwood, where they were interred afier religious services over some of them, wMle others were taken directly to the cemetery Twenty-two bodies had been taken out today, of which twenty were identified. * It was a noticeable faot that the bodies were in a much better condition while in the mine than they were after removal to the outer air. They began to smell immediately after the boxes were opened and fresh air touched them.