Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — KILLED AT A GRADE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

KILLED AT A GRADE.

THREE DEAD AND TEN HURT AT A CROSSING MASSACRE. Grand Trunk Train Crashes Into a Chicago Street Car at High Speed—Passengers Are Ground Beneath the Wreck in Awful Agony. Trainmen Blamed. Another was added to the already long list of Chicago grade-crossing horrors the other evening when an incoming dummy train on the Grand Trunk road ran into a Halsted street open car at the 49th street crossing. The car was crowded with men and women, most of whom were returning home from work. Thomas Perkins and Margaret Murphy, of Chicago, and Grace Hunt, of La Salle, were killed and terribly mangled, while ten others were seriously hurt. The street car was south bound. There were forty-six passengers on board, many of whom were standing on the footboards and others between the seats. The car was in charge of Conductor Frank Barnett and Driver Charles Statuecker. When it reached 49th street there was a long freight train passing west. There is a network of tracks at this crossing and the street car men have always looked on it as a dangerous point, When the freight train had passed, however, and the gates were raised by the towerman, George Barnett, it was taken as a signal that the crossing was cloar and Statuecker whipped up his horsos and started across the tracks. At the same time

Conductor Barnett, who had gone ahead of his car, motioned to the driver to come on. The approaching passenger train was concealed behind the outgoing freight train. Barnett in the watch tower saw the passenger train and realized that a collision was imminent. He at once lowered the gates, but he was too late, for the street car was already on the tracks and the passenger was only a few feet distant. The latter was running at a lively rate of speed and crashed into the side of the car, whi,ch was turned around and then thrown thirty feet through the air. Few of the passengers had any warning of the accident. Those on the footboard nearest the passenger train saw it coming and jumped in time to save themselves from injury and perhaps death. But the majority of those on board were carried with the demolished car and they fell to the ground together, many injured and others dead. The car, broken into many pieces, buried those who had been riding in it, and, as the passenger train plunged ahead, there were cries of agony from the victims under the wreck. The dead were at once taken to the county morgue and the injured were placed in carriages. and driven away. The passenger train was in charge of Conductor John Kern, Engineer E. W. Jones and Fireman James Campbell. Both engineer and fireman, together with the conductor and driver of the street car and the gateman, were placed under arrest. Many who were on the car said that the accident would never have occurred had the watchman and conductor of the horse car attended closely to duty. Severe censure was heard against "Conductor Barnett. As he ran ahead to see if the way was clear he went only to the first track, it is said. Here he could plainly see the freight pulling, out to the west, and amid the din of whistling locomotives he could not hear the warning signals of the approaching passenger engine. The latter train was on the second track, and had Barnett gone ten feet farther, eye-witnesses say, he could have seen the danger.

Mob Attacks an Alliance Meeting. A largely attended meeting of the Pope County Alliance at Cove, Ark., was broken up by a mob and a i*ainstorm of bullets was fired over the heads of the crowd. John T. Miller, a member of the last Arkansas Legislature, was addressing the meeting at the time. The report states at the first fire from the enomy every man in the crowd stampeded. Mrs. Ida Duncan, however, had the presence of mind to mount a box and call to the fleeing men to stand their ground, even in the face of death. But the men kept on running, leaving the woman to hold the fort alone. James Webb was hit in the eye with a stone. Efforts are being made to arrest the assailants. Notes of Current Events. George Williams killed Andrew Ryan at Omaha in a quarrel over a girl. The Glen House at Mount Washington, N. Y., burned with a loss of SIOO,000. A CONGREGATION of 5,000 persons heard Father McGlynn preach at Port Richmond, S. I. Gen. Edward Jardine, who served gallantly through the war, died at New York, aged 69 years. Starr and Wilson have been landed in jail at Fort Smith, Ark., after a narrow escape from a mob. The North American Saengerbund decided to hold the next saengerfest in Pittsburg in July, 1896. Four French war ships are now at the mouth of the Meinam, called there by the trouble with Siam. John Powell, living at St. Johns, while working in a wheatfield, was instantly killed by lightning. Commander Lyons, of the Monongahela, has been found at fault in the collision with the Speranza. E. P. Johnson and Miss Mary Grehan, of Lexington, eloped to Jeffersonville, Ind., and were married. Members of the Citizens’ Insurance Company of Cincinnati started to move for parts unknown, but were caught. In Yalta, Russia, anti-Semite mobs beat and killed many Jews and plundered their homes of everything of value. Peace in Paris is considered but temporary. The mobs are waiting a favorable opportunity to break out again. Striking coal miners in Kansas are becoming desperate and have assaulted men who are working. Bloodshed is feared. Federation of the railway orders was effected at a Pittsburg meeting, but engineers were excluded from membership. Secretary Smith received a letter from Chief Jones resenting interference in the execution of condemned Chbctaws. __

THE CRASH AT THE CROSSING.