Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1896 — HOT SPELL BROKEN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOT SPELL BROKEN.

RAIN A LIFE SAVER TO SUFFERING HUMANITY. Lone Season of Terrible Heat Departs in a Thunder Storm—Victims in Many Cities—Men and Women Die in Their Tracks on the Streets. Awfnl Death Roll. The of the hot. wave has been broken. The breaking of this cast-iron backbone was accompanied by severe thunder storms, but it is broken. An urea of high pressure developed on the Oregon coast on Sunday night and crossed the Rocky Mountains in Montana with fair velocity. Monday nighs this high area was at Helena. The temperature there was 62 and the velocity of the wind thirty miles an hour. At (ju'appellc, in the Dominion, the temperature was 50, nnd at Havre, Mont., 56. There was rain in the Dakotas and Minnesota Tuesday,

nnd it reached northern Illinois and Chicago late Tuesday night. Out of the west there came a wind and rain. In an hour the rainfall was more than an inch. In half an hour the fall in temperature was 20 degrees. In that manner Chicago dismissed her hot wave and welcomed the coolness from Montana and AA'yornIng. When the rain came down upon the baking town it was after 6 o'clock. All day men at work had sweltered. Little

people and the old were faint. Some were dead, because the bnttle with them had been too harsh. Then the rain came. Winds blew it out of the west andjout of the north—kind winds—and it fell as unrestrained mercy out of heaven. Sick tinu prostrate ones found in its balms reprieve nnd pardon. Millions thanked God out of their hearts. The day had been oppressive. Mfcn and beast had fallen helpless as the mercury rose steadily, and many feared in midafternoon that the awfulness of Monday night might’have succession npt less terrible. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the mercury was but 1 degree below the maximum registration of twenty-four" hours before. At 4it was 91 degrees. At 6 it had peevishly fallen to 89 degrees. There seemed small voice for thanksgiving. Every hour had brought to the health department fresh lists of stricken

people, new tales of the dead, added notifications that poor beasts had dropped in harness and demanded burial. Then- the bounty of the sky and the west wind pulled its purse strings wide and men and women breathed again. The slaughter was given pause. This is the record of the conqueror for the hottest three days • SUNDAY. New York ant Brooklyn 72 Philadelphia '..'. .' . 28 Baltimore !Ift Chicago |yg Small Illinois towns 9 Cincinnati 3 Small towns In Indiana 3 Small towns In Ohio | 3 Boston '..... 2 St. Louis o Pittsourg j Cleveland 2 I.otilaville 1 Memphis 1 San Antonio 1 Sioux City j MONDAY. ProsDeaths. tratlons. New York 69 205 Brooklyn 2X 90 New York suburbs 73 201 Chicago 20 91 St. Loots 11 Pittsburg 3 100 Hartford 3 New Haven 3 Boston 1 9 Cleveland 2 60 Toledo ....... 2 Providence 4 AA'asliiagtoa 6 Buffalo 2 Philadelphia 57 128 TUESDAY. ProsDeaths. tratlons. Greater New Y0hk,..........182 600 Boston 0.. .k 12 18 Philadelphia 18 00 Washington 3 Iff Baltimore 2 12 St. Louis 12 89 Indianapolis 1 3 Cincinnati 10 Cleveland 1 5 Louisville 3 17 Btllllvan, lud 7 15 Terre Haute, Ind 10 80 Chicago 8 84 Total , 265 794 The baking to which this continent has bean subjected is almost unprecedented

In the weather history of America. Every summer there are periods of six or seven days in which thertfemperature remains abnormally high* over small areas. But rarely if ever has the whole country borne continuous heat for so long a time. St Paul and Jacksonville, Fla., El Paso and Abilene, Pueblo and Green Bay suffered about equally, and the hot wave rolled mercilessly from, the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic ocean. The cumulative effects of the excessive temperature on the public health are marked in-the returns of sunstrokes turned in by the police and the observations of general mortality made by the health -department of largfc cities. Although the temperature in Chicago Tuesday a week ago was 94, the number of prostrations was small; jt grew on Wednesday with the mercury at 96; it was* still larger on Thursday when a maximum temperature of only 85 was recorded. Thence it mounted steadily to the extraordinary and appalling record for Sunday and Monday. New Yorkers Puffer, With the beginning of the seventh day of torrid heat New York city gave one great, gasping sigh and then submitted to a scorching that struck down men and women on the streets and in their homes, babies in their mothers’ arms, and children in their beds. Though the humidity was not so great as it has been, the mortality list aud the roll of those who fell prostrate were longer than ever. Men and women who had lived through six days of such awful heat could not withstand its cumulative effects. It is fair to say that hardly more than 80 per cent of thuse overcome had their cases reported to the police. Many were stricken down and went to their homes or were taken care of by friends, and of these the authorities know nothing.

RUIN LEFT BY WIND. Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and lows Swept by Storms. Michigan had a severe tussle with a storm Sunday night and Monday. A veritable cloudburst visited lonia. One storm struck the city at 11 o’clock and a second came two hours later. Complete prostration of telegraph and telephone wires resulted. No human victims

were claimed in the city, but the property damage will reach fully 875,000. In the agricultural districts the storm seems to have been equally disastrous. From nearly every direction, of buildings blown down or unroofed, while hundreds of acres of fruit trees are torn up or broken down and the fruit destroyed. Corn is flat on the ground from the effect of the rain, hail and wind, while miles of fence will have to be rebuilt. The damage to the rural districts will aggregate many thousands of dollars. Loss of live stock especially promises to reach an astonishingly high figure. A loss of SIOO,OOO was occasioned by a terrific wind which swept over Saginaw early Monday morning, but human victims were claimed. The storm was accompanied by terrific lightning and a deluge of water. In some sections of lowa the wind almost amounted to a tornado. Immense trees were blown down, houses moved off their foundations and barns and outbuildings dismantled. Panic-stricken people rushed for enves, cellars and other places of refuge. At' Sandusky, 0., Jay Leonard nnd John Thomas, of Cheboygan, employed a dock, were struck by lightning while operating a saw aud instantly killed.

HEAT PATIENT IN THE HOSPITAL.

DEATH IN THE SUN.

A STRICKEN HORSE.