Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1892 — IN A RUNAWAY ELEVATOR. [ARTICLE]

IN A RUNAWAY ELEVATOR.

Nine Persons Inside, and the Thing Racing Up and Down the Shalt. Courier-Journal. Eight men and a boy had an exciting time in the Commerce building at noon yesterday. One of tfci ~ elevators got ont of order and threatened to go through the wwf. Thff eight men and the small bov were unfortunate enough to be passengers on it at that time. The excitement lasted but a few minutes, hardly over three, but the time of the nervous strain was variously computed by those on board at from one to four hours, ;■ 7 ; Just before noon two of the elevators stopped running, the nearest one to the front door alone remaining in operation. The elevators are worked by hydraulic power, and the force required to work them was thus thrown on one. It was an up trip that eight men crowded into the elevator. Two of- t-hers were Mr. Tom -Craig and Mr. Donalo Ross. The door was closed with a bang and the boy pulled the lever for the ascent. In a second the throttle, as it were, was wide open. The elevator seemed travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and appeared every second to'be getting on more steam every second. The elevator boy worked manfullyat the lever, and used every means to stop the “lift,” but the machine refused to take hold, and the wild career continued. Suddenly the cage stopped with a jolt, and the elevator started down at the killing pace it had been going upward. Gown two stories it dropped, and then suddenly began rising again. By this time all on board wished they were somewhere else. They looked wildly out on the polished floors, where safety was, and for the first time realized what a prison a runaway elevator is. Though the boy at the lever exhausted every resource of bis art.now resorting to skill and now to strength the movements of the elevator became more eccentric. It went up twenty feet and fell ten. The men thought they might have led better lives. It went up thirty feet and fell fifteen. The elevator boy thought of some mean things he had done. It went up twenty feet and fell ten. All resolved that if they got out alive they would walk straight and narrow paths the rest of their lives.

It went up fifteen feet and fell thirty, and then dashed with deadly speed toward the roof, and all the sins that the eight caged men and the one caged poy had. ifver done rushed before them like a host of devils. But it stopped just in time, and once more reversed brakes. It stopped with cruel jolts now and then, but always between the floors, leaving those on board still caged in by wire walls. Time and again it seemed certain it would halt at one of the floors. *Eut it did not, and hope died again. Finally after what seemed an eter. nity of torture, the elevator did stop two feet below one of the doors. Mr. Craig was closest to the exit, and hastily throwing back the door be leaped upward and out. As he did so the machine shot upward, and it was only by a hairs breadth that he caped being crushed and most certainly killed. After his escape the elevator continued to perform for a minute, and then once more became obedient. The seven men and boys got out as quickly as possible. All were very thankful. The elevator was examined and pronounced to be in good working order. The elevator boy got on board and tried it for a floor or iwo, and returning pronounced everything all right. The elevator never did this before.