Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1890 — DEADLY GAS EXPLOSION. [ARTICLE]

DEADLY GAS EXPLOSION.

Six People Killed and Many Injure ] a' Columbus, Ohio. An explosion of natural eras occurred iu the double residence of Michael Bowel's and John Marriott at Columbus, Ohio Friday afternoon, by which six persons were instantly killed, several fatally injured, and at least twenty-five bodily injured. The cause of the calamity was an accumulation of gas in the house referred to. Leading past this house is one of the mains. The pipes had leaked and the explosive fluid had found its way through fissures in the ground to the cellar. It became ignited in some unknown manner, and exploded with terrific force, wrecking the building,and filling the uir with dobris. Mrs. Marriott was blown out of the house,* and a man named Goulding, who was stand ing near the structure, was blown across the street. Mrs. Marriott was carried across the street and into the residence of William James, a book-keeper for the book firm of Glock & Beck. Dr. Wissinger, a prominent physician, was called to attend her injuries. The house where the injured lay was soon crowded with people attracted by, the accident, and it was soon necessary to close the doors, that no more might enter. Little knew those scores of: spectators huddled around the sufferer that they were standing in a death trap which was then on the verge of carrying them into eternity. Suddenly the air was rent by a tremendous explosion, which made the earth quake, and filled the air with flying timber, bricks and debris of all kinds. Darkness ensued, and then a death-like stillness reigned for a few moments. It was broken by shrieks and death groans. The house in which lay the powerless f r n of Mrs. Marriott had been ; blown to atoms and its occupants buried ! beneath the wreck.

Hundreds of spectators who lined the sidewalks wore knocked violently down ! by the shock, and lay powerless. Then, to ' cap the climax, a team of spirited horses I attached to one of the fire department lad- : der trucks became frenzied at the explo- | sion, and dashed away into the crowd, carrying death in their wake. They ran over and injured scores of people. A beautiful little babe was knocked from its mother’s arms, aud, falling beneath the merciless wheels of the vehicle, was 1 crushed to death. ' - As soon as the maddened steeds had dis appeared in the darkness many of the spectators and firemen, who had been un injured by either of the horrors turned tlieir attention to the digging out of the persons buried beneath the ruins of «he house. Guided by the cries and moans of the mangled and dying, men groped' in the darkness, pulling out u dead body, a mauglod, yet living form there, and conveying them to resting places. Groups of men, women and children gathered around the prostrate forms, and bloodcurdling shrieks made the awful scene more revolting as ! Mends recognized friends in the injured or dead, parents found their mutilated* children, and vice versa. It required several hours to remove all the dead and injured from the ruins. A band of eight hundred Indians on S. Peter’s reserve, a few miles out of Winnipeg.is being rapidly wiped out. The Indian are’afflicted with la grippe in its most severe form, and being without proper - medial attendance, the redskins quickly succumb 1 o the malady. In most cases it has developed into lung diseases, to which ! they are subject Seventy-five per cent of them are down with it and if speedy action is not taken by the authorities to send physicians, few will auryive. The Indians have never before been iT malady df this description, and have no idea bow to treat it