Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — Three Days and Nights in a Sewer. [ARTICLE]

Three Days and Nights in a Sewer.

The New York Sun gives the following account of the horrible experience of a thief in Elizabethport, N. J., who ran into a sewer to escape the clutches of an officer who had detected him in the act ot committing a burglary: • The officer stripped off his coat, laid his club aside, took his dark lantern on his arm, and saying, “I’ll have that man now or I’ll lose my life,” entered the Singer sewer. Stooping low, and pressing through the heavy stream that rolled at his feet, often pausing to catch the sound ot a footfall and turning his face upward, to regain his breath, he_ crept along. Soon he heard a distant plash, and then he went on a little faster, but as fast as he advanced, the retreating footsteps showed that the man he sought was going farther and further into the sewer. Thicker and thicker grew the heavy miasmatic air, the walls of the noisome dungeon seemed to be contracting, a cold chill arose from the stream, the officer’s brained reeled, and turning about he made his way as fast as possible back to the entrance. While he was turning around he heard the waters splash afar off, as though the fugitive was hastening away, and then all was silent The officer was so weak after his Tong stay in the fetid air of the sewer that he reeled like a drunken man. The party stayed long at the mouth of the tunnel, but as the stranger had not come out at three or four o’clock, all went home except the officer. He remained until after daylight, and soon, afterward, the rising tide having filled the sewer so that there could be no possible escape for the man, the officer went away. After this the subject was dropped in Elizabethport, and the stranger who had been chased through the night into his probable tomb was almost forgotten. As far as can be learned from the rumbling sentences and broken English of tbe man who now lies in partial delirium on his ent in the Elizabethtown almshouse, his story is substantially that after he penetrated for a short distance into the sewer, lie heard the footfalls of hie pursuers, and fearing that he might be overtaken, he ran further in. He was unable to stand upright on account of the low walls, and os be went blindly on, he often fell and bruised his arms and knees on the solid pavement At length he had

gone »o far that he could hear no Bound from behind, and he stopped to think. He became confuted, the whole paasage seemed in an Inextricable tangle, and then it flashed upon him that he wa» lost. The main channel was intersected by crossing and iccrossdng chambers, and in the darkness lie knew not Which way to turn. Suddenly he heard an unearthly sound. The solid wall trembled and swayed, and there was a dull, heavy roar, a rush, and then the noise gradually died out, the swaying ceased, and again all was silent, lie concluded that the great roaring had been caused by the approach and passage of a heavy train on the Central Railroad, whose track is near the sewer. He cannot tell how long it was before the sounds of life aliove, faintly audible, told him that it had become day, but the first sound he heard after the passing of the train was that of the distant clashing of machinery. He thought that the sound was the noise of the heavy machinery in the factory. He dropped on his hands and knees in the filthy water,* and probably became unconscious. He was awakened by a strange, cold, creeping sensation about the knees, and he noticed instantly that the water on the bed of the chamber was much deeper, and then lie knew that the tide was coming in. He sat and watched it as it rose higher; it rose gradually up to his waist, then it glided about his throat, and at length he had to turn his face upward to keep his. mouth out of water. He gave himself up in despair, and shrieked and shouted for help. He next noticed a gradual but evident decrease in the flood, and soon after he was left to wander again along the chamber. Hour after hour passed, the tide rose and fell, the railroad trains thundered on, and day succeeded night. Sometimes the man was consumed by an intolerable thirst, so fierce and terrible that he swallowed whole quartsof the filthy water. He ate the garbage that drifted down. At length, after what seemed an age, the man in sheer desperation determined to travel straight ahead, let the sewer lead where it might. Sometimes half upright, often on hands and knees, he struggled periods of exhaustion, at last a gleam of light told him he was not far from the entrance. The light grew brighter, and, encouraged, he went on rapidly. At last, at about eight o’clock Sunday morning, he got out of the sewer. He made his way slowly and with difficulty up the street to Schaubler’s Hotel, opposite the Postoflice, In Elizabethporr. His appearance was frightful. His clothes were soaked with filth and covered with salt, his limbs were swelled to double their natural size, his face was stained and ghastly, and his elbows and knee-joints protruded through the skin. As the reporter addressed Gilgemann in the Alms House, yesterday, he brightened up and tried to rise, but fell back trembling and prostrate. He said that he must have drank forty pails of water in the dungeon, for he had a terrible thirst. “Dnee; 1 ' said he, “ they let in steam from the factory and it nearly killed me.” Gilgemann says that he was born in Strassburg, and that he fought with the French in the late war with the Germans, being an artilleryman. He is ibrty-four years old, and has, as may be inferred from the foregoing story, an iron constitution. The swelling of his limbs has partially gone down, and it is thought “that he may recover. Elizabethport people say that only an adverse wind kept the tide from drowning Gilgemann.