Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1891 — WERE SLAIN BY A JOKE. [ARTICLE]

WERE SLAIN BY A JOKE.

THE OHIO WRECK CAUSED BY WANTON FOOLISHNESS. Several Lives Are Lost—Nearly Fortv I’er- , sons Injured, Some Fatally—Two Cars Thrown Off the Track and Demolished— Tbrl ling Stories of Eye-Witnesses. The wreck at Middletown, Ohio, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad, was one of the worst that have ever happened in that vicinity. The National t ash Register Company of Dayton had given its employes an excursion to Woodsdale, in a train of sixteen coaches. The day had passed merrily, and everybody was laughing and chat~ ting when the train reached Middletown at 8 o’clock on its way home. Some one had turned the air-brakes on for a joke* and the engine was puffing and wheezing to pull the heavy load with the brakes on. Pretty soon a draw-bar broke, and the train was stopped on the siding at Middletown for repairs. William G. Douglass, one of the foreman of the National Cash Register Works, tells this story of the wreck: The train of fifteen crowded fiats' started on its return trip from Woodsdale about 7 o’clock and about an hour later the accident occurred at Middletown. A drawbar about the middle of the excursion traih broke and they stopped at Middletown to patch it up for the run to Dayton. Brakemfen were immediately sent out with red flags to flag the approaching train, and nearly half an hour was consumed in repairing the disabled car. Red lights were not promptly changed to tho rear of this car, though the train was pulling out when the accident occurred at nearly 8 o’ciock. The 250 men, women, and children were in the last three coaches ana all knew that freight train No. 44 was following and they appreciated and ti’ked of their danger. Some of them called Conductor Peter G. Clancy’s attention to their peril and he cautioned them that if they heard train 44 coming they should jump from the car. Five minutes later the awful disaster was upon them. The excursion was slowly creeping off the side-track, when an ominous roaring was heard from the expected train No. 44, not over a quarter of a mile away. Nearer and nearer came the monster mogul with thirty-five loaded cars, and when in sight of Middletown Station Engiseer the flagman waving the danger signal, and he immediately called for brakes, shut off steam and applied the sand. He saw that a collision was inevitable. Then he and his fireman jumped and an instant iater the crash came—a rear-end collision of mighty force. The excursion train was pulling out on to the main track and all but the two rear coaches had left the siding when the mogul engine with the heavy train behind it went plowing through. The two rear cars and human freight were hurled into the ditch and the next coach was struck fairly in the end, and the locomotive, pushing under, elevated it to an angle of forty-five degrees, and there it stood, filled with shrieking peop e This car caught fire, but Engineer Schwind and his fireman were able to extinguish tli3 blaze by use of hose from the locomotive. Two ears lay crushed in the ditch with a mass of maimed and mangled people moaning in agony, pleading for help. Rescuers set to work at once to extricate them. Legs, arms and heads could be seen through broken windows or pinned under the wreck. Moans t of the helpless sufferers, and moans of tho dying, mingled with the frantic cries of mothers seeking husbands and children. Many had been cut by glass and the timbers in the rush to escape, and bloody faces and hands bore ghastly testimony to the great number who were injured. Physicians and citizens ol Middletown were soon at the scene to join in rescuing the unfortunates. The terror-stricken excur.-ionists were made comfortable in the houses, the dead persons were properly cared for, and the injured received all necessary attention. A tramp named James Wilson, of Columbus, Ohio, who, with his two little boys, was having a free ride on the freight train, says he is a railroader by occupation and was on the third cai from tho front when approaching Middletown; that he plainly saw the red lights swinging, and that the engineer tried to stop the train but could, not, and the heavy cars crowded him into the excursion train.