Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1903 — SCORES ARE MANGLED. [ARTICLE]

SCORES ARE MANGLED.

Appalling Disaster Overtakes ExCSf* slon Party at Detroit. At Detroit eight persons were killed sod forty injured, some fatally, by the pan-American fiyer on the Grand Trunk Railroad, which rushed into a crowd of excursionists who were about to boar<t an outgoing train for Toledo. The disaster was most appalling. The excursionist* were ujostly Poles who had journeyed to Detroit lor a Sunday visit with friends and fellow churchraen. They had spent a day of merry-making and celebration in honor of the 112th anniversary of Polish freedom, and were awaiting the excursion train to pull up on a siding of the Lake Shore road. The visitors were gathered in groups' and were scattered along the Grand Trunk track, which parallels the Lake shore at the scene of the catastrophe, Dequinder and Canfield streets. The excursion traiu came in sight of the crowds a few minutes after 8 o’clock. “Clear the track,” was shouted by officials of the Polish Lancers who were in charge. Everyone who had been standing on the Lake Shore track scampered to one side—to join their friends who stood on the Grand Trunk roadway. Thus It was that the entire party was assembled in a compact mass when the through train thundered in sight. The through train was running at a fair rate of speed, it being within the city confines, and its momentum was so great that the engineer was unable to check the engine in time. There is a slight curve before the junction of Canfiejd and Dequinder streets is reached, and the mammoth locomotive, with its glaring headlight and hissing steam-vent, was almost in the unsuspecting crowd before it was realized that death impended. The great engine, with its seven-foot driving wheels, rushed into the living mass of humanity and ground fathers, mothers and children beneath its wheels or tossed etheir forms hither and thither on its passage. The express ran for nearly two blocks before it was halted. It plowed directly through the center of the excursion party. llow hundreds escaped fearful death will never be known. Half-dead men and women were carried along on the cow-catcher of the locomotive. Women with babies in their arms were dashed down, some to death. Bodies were flying in the air. Piercing screams and the last groans of the dying were heard in unspeakable discord. Escapes from instant death are being reported and some are almost too marvelous to credit. Men and women who say they were directly in front of the locomotive wore lifted up and thrown to one fide without injury. Four of the dead were killed outright by the train and the others died after being taken to the hospitals.