Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1888 — THE WESTERN STATES. [ARTICLE]

THE WESTERN STATES.

Au aeronaut over in Michigan has successfully demonstrated that by the aid of a parachute a man may safely jump out of a balloon ten thousand feet above the earth. Tho feat was a daring one, bnt its utility is not very clear, as very few people’ ever find it necessary to jump from a balloon when it is ton thousand feet from the ground. One of the worst accidents that have ever happened on the lowa and Dakota Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Road occurred on Thursday, near New Hampton, lowa. The west-bound passenger train plunged over a bridge into the Wapsie River, swollen to a fearful torrent. The engine, baggage-car, and smoker were piled together in the river where the water was ten feet deep, the two passenger cars following. Five persons were killed and over twenty injured, many of them severely. The scene was most heartrending. The shrieks of men, women, and children were heard issuing from the cars, calling and begging for help. Those who were in the sleeper were the first to get out, and immediately they went to work to assist those in the two breaking through the windows and cutting out the sides and bottom. In less than thirty minutes not a person remained in either ot these coaches. Following are the names of the dead: Willard Anderson, Lemont, Wis.; Gens Martin, Christianson. Denmark, ticketed to Dell Rapids; John Duclus, ticketed to Kimball, D. T.; James Scagell, engineer, Mason City, Iowa; an infant daughter of Mr: Herdecker. A wind and hail storm raged at Faribault, Minn., for fifteen minutes, during which time tho roofs of several store buildings were torn off, telegraph and telephone poles blown down, and a total loss of about $100,003 caused. A tornado demolished several buildings in Sioux City, lowa, and another cloud an hour later tore up the Illinois Central track at Marion, fifty miles distant Asad accident is reported by telegraph from Palmyra, Mo., in which a score of school children had a miraculous escape from death: ' It was Arbor or Tree-Planting Day in Missouri, and fully forty little ones started out with their teachers to dig trees in a neighboring grove and plant them iu the school-yard. Twenty of the children wandered away from the teacher and began playlug around an abandoned well. The rotteu planks covering the well gave way and fifteen children were precipitated to the bottom. It was twenty feet to the water, and there was three feet of water. Two of the children, Arthur Little and May Dolan, were drowned. Seven were dangerously injured. Help was summoned and the little ones were hauled up as fast as possible. Three of tho rescued are not expected to live. Ambbose White, recently Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at Cincinnati, has been indicted for embezzlement and for receiving goods under false pretenses. A fatheb and son who attempted, to row across the St. Clair River from Port Huron to Sarnia, Mich., had their boat capsized by a cake of ice and both were drowned.