Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1891 — A TICKLISH JOB. [ARTICLE]

A TICKLISH JOB.

Swinging at the End of a Rope 250 1 Feet High in a 32 Mile Breeze. Boston Globe! The 1 o’clock whistles had just called the workman back to their toil yesterday afternoon, when the wind was cavorting about among the housetops ( and chimney poits in its most hair-rais- j ing manner. Thirty-two miles an j hour. So blew the wind. Up near the shore of the South Bay, | suspended ’twixt heaven and earth, 1 hung a man who most of all the citizens j of Boston had cause to remember how j the wind blew the 12th day of Decern- ; her in the year of grace 1890. Jaok j Carrol, swimmer, diver, man-of-war’s ; man, steeple olimber, and chimney ! scaler, was ; swaying back and forth j just a trifile lees that. 250 feet from the ; earth. But a seemingly slender rope \ bore him up, and it looked so little worthy of confidencoto the people who craned their necks far below him that they stood rooted to the ground, expecting each moment that a human body would tremble in mid-air and then plunge crushed and broken to the earth.*' But it didn’t the wind twisted him about on his narrow seat swung him ! playfully away from the big mass of j brick and motar, and tried its best to | ■ dislodge him, but pluokily he clung, i i sturdily he pounded away with a ham. '.met* that was suspended from his waist. j < The chimney whose looming height: was the point of observation is the lofty structure which has . been erected by I West End Street Railway Company. ] The big Iron cap has just been placed -on. Us brow, and a person standing on -its summit Is further , from mother earth, at tho same lime retaining con neo.ioh with her. than he c-no get anywhere else in Boston. For months laborers worked upon the foundations for moaths mw thgy built tt higher,

until it reared its heads far above every thing terrestrial, with the exception of the blue bills fringing the horizon. Spires, chimneys and masts are, dwarfed Beside it. One thing was left to be done. Lightning rods must be placed upon it - ~ It was with this purpose in mind that clear headed. Jack Carroll was swung up its sides yesterday. The lightning rod isn't a rod at ali in the usual acceptance of the term. It ie a strap. It is made in tbi3 shape to handle more easily. It was hoisted to the top of the chimney in a big coil on a reel. Then one end of it was run out over the top, a roan slung in a sling on the very edge ground it through a sort of rolling machine to straighten and flatten it out. and it was lowered till it reached the ground. Then came Jack Carroll’s part of the work. A heavy. Stout rope was run up the inside of the chimney through blocks and down the outside to the ground again. There Jack fastened to it his sling, with a stout plank for a seat. The wind blew so fearfully that guy ropes had to be suspended from the top. His seat had an arrangement on the ends so it could be attached to these ropes and slide between them, else the wind would have blown him out so far that he couldn’t have reached the chimney at all, and even if he had each blow with his hammer would have sent him rebounding away, the plaything of the breezes. The word was given and up he was hoisted. He was securely fastened to his seat, and used as he was to such trips, it seemed only a joke to him. But the wind was a little heavier than he had anticipated. After he bad reached, the point where he received the full benefit of its caresses, he signalled to be lowered, and came down to make his fastenings still more secure and to tie a cord around his shoes to keep them from being blown off his feet. Then up he wont again and commenced work, fastening the thin strips of metal to the irons inserted in the brick work, done as the masons progressed upward. The wind still blew him out §9 far that he bad to unhook his seat frotn the guide ropes and use his ieet on them to push him in toward the chimney. Just under the bulging head of the chimney the work was most difficult, but he effected it safelys— Then he worked along downward.