Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1874 — BLOWN UP. [ARTICLE]

BLOWN UP.

Can’t say, I’m sure, sir. Been used to bilers all my life; but working ’em’s different to making ’em. There’s something wrong, as you say, or they wouldn’t always be a-bustin. ’Tain’t once nor twice, nor now and then, for it’s a thing as is. always a-happening; and though I’ve never had more than a scald or two myself I’ve seen some strange sights: men all blown to pieces, so that they were picked up afterward in baskets; men taken to the hospital with their flesh hanging to them in rags, and there they’d lie writhing and tearing at the wrappings in' such agony that—there, I ain’t above owning it—l’ve cried like a child to see my poor mates’ sufferings. And there they’d be day after day, till a sort of calm came over them and the pain went, when they’d quite smile if you spoke to ’em, they seemed so easy; and it would be because a gentle hand was laid upon ’em and they were going into the long sleep. Some gets better, but not when they’re scalded badly; for it’s strange stuff, is steam. Well, no, I’m not afraid and never do feel afraid. What’s the good? One’s got it to do, and there’s the mouths at home to feed, so one can’t aflord it; and then the odds are precious long ones against it being one’s own bustin’. But now so many more steam engines are coming into use day by day, it seems as if something ought to be done in the way of making bilers stronger. Cheapness is cheapness; but then a thihg’s dear at any price that makes such ruin as I’ve seen sometimes; so why don’t they try some tougher metal than iron?—though certain! v"st,cam's strong enough to tear up anything. But there seems to me to be some fresh plan wanted for making bilers. I didn’t work there but I went and had a lcok d’reckly after that horrible accident at the Big Works last autumn. Well, there was about an acre of buildings—sheds and setrer—swept away as if you’d battered ’em all down; great fire-bricks, weighing a hundred and a half, pitched here and there like chaff; sheets of lead sent flying a hundred yards; tall chimneys powdered down; and the big busted biler itself jumped right out of its place; while as to Ahe middle of it, that was torn off and crumpled up and blown, like a sheet of paper, to a distance. Plenty of life lost plenty of escapes; but what I Took'most notice of was the plates torn off the biler —torn'off, as I said before, like so much paper; while these sheets or plates of iron had . ( given way at the rivets and looked for all the world like torn-off postage stamps —torn off of course along the perforating.

“Now, then,” Isays to myself, “that’s a thing as wants altering. You perforate the edges of your plates to admit rivets, and so take half their strength off—p’r’aps more; then you puts, perhaps, hot rivets in, and they p’r’apajyystallizes the iron” —only p’r’aps, mind,"! don’t say so, only the raw edges of the biler looked crystal - ly and brittle. “ Well, then, some day comes a hextry pressure o' steam, and up goes.your biler—busted, and spreading ruin, and death, and misery around” “ Then how are we to fasten our biler plates,” says you, “if we don’t rivet em?” How should I know? I ain’t a scientific man—l only stokes. That’s for you to find out. But you ain’t a-going to tell me, are you, that you scientific men and biler-makers can’t find no other way to make bilers only by riveting them? Say you bend the plates, edges over, and hooks one into the other, like tin sarspan makers does their tin. They’d stand some strain that way. and you wouldn’t weaken your plates. I ain’t a bilermaker, or I should try that dodge, I think; but there, that’s only one way out of many as could be fciund by experiment. Seeing to me, sir, as if we English people hates anything new, and always wants "to keep to what our fathers and grandfathers had before us. They went along and made their footmarks, and we go along after ’em, putting our foots in just the same spots, thinkingdt must be right, come what will ot it. Had to do with engines many years. Stoked locomotives anu stationaries, agriand manufactories, and „print-ng-offices, and been down in the engine’Yooms of steamers; and that last’s about the hottest and worst of ail. Killing work, you know, for anybody, 'specially in a ho£ country, where every breath of air that conies down to you is already

roasted, as it were, and don’t do you any good. Bustins? Well, no, only one, and that was quite enough; for though it didn’t hurt my body it did hurt my heart, and if you happen to be a father you’ll understand what I mean. It was dinner-time at our works —a great place, where the engine used to be going to pump water night and day, so that there were two of us; and one week I’d be on daywork, next week nightwork*, and so on. Now it so happened that our water in that part was terribly hardwater that would cover the inside of a biler with thick fur in no time. But whether it was that or no I can’t say; all I know is that one dinner-time I went out into the yard to wash my hands and have a cooler, when I heard a strange wild, rushing noise, and felt something hit me on the back of the head; and then, turning round, I stood fixed to the spot, for the air was black with tiles, and bricks, and laths, and rafters, while the whole place seemed to be crumbling up together, just like as if you’d built up a tall card-house and then tapped it so that it fell, one card on top of another, till there was a little heap all lying close and snug, so that out of a tall building there was nothing left but some smoking ruins. I knew it was not my fault, for I had looked at the gauge just before, and the pressure of steam wasn’t heavy. I knew there was plenty of water in the biler and the safety-valve was all right; so that all I could do was to be thankful for the accident happening at dinnertime, and also for my own wonderful escape. And then, though I wasn’t hurt, something seemed to come over me like a flash, and struck me to the ground in an instant. When I came to I felt horribly sick and deathly like, and I looked about from face to face wondering what was the matter; for I couldn’t make it out why I should be lying on my back with people round me in the yard—one holding up my head and another sprinkling my face with water. Then it all came back at once, and I shuddered as I turned my head and looked at the ruined works; for I knew what it was struck me down to the earth. I said before it was like a flash, and it was—it was one quick thought which came across my brain, for I knew that, being dinner-time, my little golden-haired gal would have brought my ’lowance tied up in a basin; and something told me that she had gone into the stoke-hole to find me when I had gone into the yard. “Let me get up,” I says; and Iran toward the ruins, and began tearing away at the heap of brick rubbish, while the crowd now gathered together, hearing that there was some one underneath, began tearing away at the rubbish like fury. By and by the police came and some gentlemen, and something like order was got at, and people worked well to get town to where the stoke-hole had been. I had said that there was some one there, but I couldn’t shape my mouth to say who it was; and some said it was one man, and some another; but whoever they named seemed to come directly back from his dinner or because he had heard the explosion. So, by and by, people began to look from one to another, and ask who it was. “Ask Wilum,” says some one; “he was here at the time;” and some one asked me. But I had no occasion to speak, for just then, alarmed at the child not going back as usual, the little gal’s mother came shrieking out, and crying: “Where’s little Patty? where’s little Patty?” and then, when no one spoke, she gave a sort of pitiful moan, and sank slowly down—first on her knees and then sideways on to a heap of bricks; and I remember thinking it was best, for I could not find it in my heart to go to her help, but kept on tearing away at the hot bricks and rubbish. It was puzzling and worrying; for one could not seem to be sure of where anything had once stood, in the horrible confusion before us. One said the stokehole had been here, and another there; but even I, who had worked there two years, could not be sure amidst the confusion. Hour after hour went by, and still we worked on; while, as every big rafter or beam was lifted and dragged away, I was obliged to turn my head, for I felt sick, and the place seemed to swim; for I expected to see Patty’s little bright curls torn out and hanging to the jagged wood, and that underneath there would be something horrible and crushed. I know it wasn’t manly; but what can I say, when there was a little, bright, blue-eyed child in the case—one of those little things whose look will make your great rough hand fall to your side when raised in anger, while the tinjvtliing can lead you about and do what she likes with you? P’r’aps I ain’t manly; but somehow children always, seem to get the upper hand of me. And so on we worked,hour after hour; men getting tired and dropping off, but always plenty ready to fill their places; while I —l never thought of it, but kept on tearing away till my hands bled and the sweat ran down my face; but I turned away every time there was something large lifted, for I said to myself, “She must be under that!” And then again and again in my mind I seemed to see the torn and crushed face of my darling and her long curls dabbled in blood. In the midst of the piled-up, blackened ruins—bricks, mortar, tiles, lead, and ragged and torn beams, huge pieces of wood snapped and torn like matches — we toiled on hour after hour till the dark night came, when the gas-pipes that had been laid bare and plugged were unstopped and the gas lit, so that it flared and blazed, and cast a strange, wild light over the ruined place. There had been flames burst forth two or three times from parts of the ruins, but a few sprinklings from the fire-engine in attendance had put them but; and as we worked on the rubbish grew cooler and cooler. Some said that the child could not have been there, but the sight of her mother tearing out was sufficient, when once she got away from the people who had her in their house —a house where

bjit part of the windows had been broken by the explosion—and came running to where I was at work, snatching at the bricks and wood till I got two or three to take her back, for I couldn’t have left where I was to have saved my life. But I remember so- well asking myself why it was that women will let down their back hair when they’re in a state of excitement, and make ’emselves look so wild. By and by some one came to say how bad my wife was, and that she waited to see me; but I felt that I couldn’t go, and kept on in a fevered sort of way, work, work; and I’ve thought since that if she had been dying it would have been alLthe same. However, I heard soon after that she seemed a little better; and I found out afterward that a doctor there had given the poor thing something that seemed to calm her, and she went to sleep. It would have been a strong dose, though, that would have sent me off to sleep, as still on, hour after hour, I worked there, never tiring, but lifting beams that two or three men would have gone at, and, tossing the rubbish away like so much straw. The owners were kind enough, and did all they could to encourage the men, sending out beer and other refreshments; but the heap of stuff to move was something frightful, and more than once 1 felt quite in despair, and ready to sit down and cry weakly. But I was at it again the next moment, and working with the best of them. “ Hadn’t you better leave now?” said one of my masters; “ I’ll see that everything is done.” I gave him one look, and he laid his hand kindly on my shoulder, and said no more to me about going; and I heard him say “Poor fellow!” to someone by him, as he turned away. ■ We came upon the biler quite half a dozen yards out of its place, ripped right across where the rivets went; while as for the engine it was one curious bit of iron tangle—rods, and bars, and pieces of iron and brass twisted and turned and bent about like so much string; and the great fly-wheel was broken in a halfdozen places.' This showed us now where the great cellar-like place—the stoke-hole—was,and we worked down now toward that; but still clearing the way, for how could I tell where the child might be? But it was weary, slow work; every now and then rigging up shears, and fastening ropes, and pully, and sheaf to haul up some great piece of iron, or abeam; and, willing as everyone was, we made very little progress m the dark night. Once we had to stop and batter down a wall with a scaffold pole; for the police declared it to be unsafe and the Sergeant would not let us work near it till it was down; and all the while I was raging like a madman at the check. But it was of no use and the man was right. He was doing his duty, and not like me, searching for the little crushed form of my darling in the cruel ruins. The people made me worse, for they would talk and say what they thought so that I could hear. One would say she might still be alive, another woula shake his head, and so on; when I kept stopping, in spite of all I tried not, listening to what they said, and it all seemed so much lost time. The engine-room was now cleared, and, in spite of my trembling and horror as every big piece was disturbed, nothing had been found; but all at once as #ve were trying to clear behind the biler and get down to the stoke-hole one of the men gave a cry. I caught at-the man nearest to me, and then lights, rubbish, the strange wild scene all seemed to run round me and I should have fallen only the man held me up and some one brought me some brandy. I was myself again directly, and, stumbling over the bricks to where a knot of men had collected, and a policeman had his bull’s-eye lantern open and they were stooping to look at something that lay just under a beam they had raised—to the left of where I expected she would be found. “Smashed,” I heard some one, with his back to me, say; and then some one else, “ Poor little/thing, she must have run past here!” Then, with my throat dry and my eyes staring, I crept up and thrust two men aside; right and left, when the others made way for me without speaking, and, when I got close up, I covered my face with my hands, and softly knelt down. The pbliceman said something, and ‘some one else spoke cheerily; but I couldn’t hear what they said, for my every thought was upon what I was going to see. And now, for the first time, the great, blinding tears came gushing from my eyes, so that when I slowly took down first one hand and then another I was blinded, and could not see for a few moments; till, stooping a little/' lower, there, smashed and flattened, covered wftfa mortar and dust, was my old red cotton handkercher, tied round the basin and plate that held my dinner, dropped here by my little darling. For a few moments I was, as it were, struck dumb—it was so different a sight to what I had expected to see; and then I leaped up and laughed, and shouted, and danced—the relief was so great. “-Come on!” 1 cried again; and then, for an hour or more, we were at it, working away till the light began to come in the east, and tell us that it was daybreak. Late as it was, plenty of people had stopped all the time; for, somehow or another, hundreds had got to know the little bright, golden-haired thing that trotted backward and forward every day with my dinner-basin. She was too littlp to do it, but then, bless you! that was our pride; for the wife combed, and brushed and dressed her up on purpose. And fine and proud we used to be of the little thing, going and coming—so oldfashioned. Why, lots of heads used to be thrust out to watch her; and seeing how pretty, and artless and young she was,.we used to feel that everyone would try and protect her; and it was so. Time after time that night I saw mother-ly-looking women that I did not know, with their aprons to their eyes, sobbing and crying; and though I di'dn’t notice it then I remembered it well enoueh afterward—ah! and always shall; while the way in which some of the men worked—- „ V .. • ’ i

well-to-do men who wojild have thought themselves insulted if you’d offered ’em five shillings for their night’s job—showed how my poor little darling had won the hearts of all around. Often and often since, too, I could have stopped this one and shook hands with that one for their kindness; only there’s always that shut-upness about an Englishman that seems to make him all heart at a time of sorrow and a piece of solid bluntness at every other time. Well, it was now just upon jpnorning and we were all worked up to a pitch of excitement that nothing could be like. We had been expecting to come upon the Eoor child all the afternoon and night, ut now there could be no doubt or it. She must be here, for we were now down in the stoke-hole, working again with more vigor than Jiad been shown for hours. Men’s faces were flushed and their teeth set. They didn’t talk only in whispers, and the stuff went flying out as fast as others could take it away. “ Easy, easy,” the Sergeant of Police kept saying aa he and two of his men kept us well lit with the strong light of their lanterns But the men tore on, till at last the place was about cleared out and we had got to a mass of brick wall sloping against one side and a little wood-work on the other side, along with some rubbish. And now, was the exciting time as we went—four of us—at the brick wall, dragged at it and raised it, when some women up above shrieked out and we stood trembling, for it had crumbled down and lay all of a heap where we had raised it; from. “Quick!” I shouted, huskily. And we tore the bricks away till there was hardly a scrap left and we stood staring at one another. “ Why, she ain’t here, arter all!” says a policeman. “I’m blest,” says another. But I couldn’t speak, for I did not know what to do; but stood staring about as if I expected next to see the little darling come running up again unhurt. “Try there,” says the Sergeant. Then he turned on his light into a dark corner, where the bits of wood lay, and I darted across and threw back two or three pieces, when I gave a cry, and fell on my knees again. For there was no mistake this time; I had uncovered a lit* tie foot, and there was the little white sock all blood-stained; and I felt a great sob rise from my breast as I stooped down and kissed the little red spot. “ Steady,” said the Sergeant, and then quickly, as I knelt there, they reached over me, and lifted piece after piece away, till there, in the gray light of the morning, I was looking upon the little motionless figure, lying there with her golden hair, as I had fancied, dabbled in blood from a cut in her little white forehead, where the blood had run } but now lay hard and dry. Covered with blood and scraps of mortar, she lay stretched out there, and I felt as if my heart would break to see the little, peaceful face almost with a smile upon it; while, as if out of respect to my feelings, the men all drew back, till I knelt there all alone. And now far up in the sky the warm light of the rising sun shone, and it was reflected down upon that tiny face, lighting it up with almost heavenly beauty; and as I knelt there in the still silence of that early morn I could hear again and again a half-stifled sob from those lookingon. With trembling hands I leaned forward and raised her head; then, passing one beneath her, I rose on my knee to bear her out, when I stopped as if turned to stone, then let go, and clasped both my raw and bleeding hands to my blackened forehead, as, shrieking out, “ My God, she’s alive!” I fell back insensible; for those little blue eyes had opened at my touch, and a voice, like the faintest sigh of the wind in summer, whispered the one word, “ Father!” * * * * * 1* * That’s her, sir. Fine girl she’s grown, ain’t she? But she was beautiful an a child. Hair ever so many shades lighter; and, unless you went close up, you couldn’t see the mark of that cut, though it was some time before the scar gave over looking red. But really, you know, sir, there ought to be something done about these bilers ; for the rate at which they’re a-bustin’s fearful.— Once a Week.

—Prof. Tousley discovered them in Mr. A. B. Barton’s cellar. Mr. Tousley occupies Mr. Barton’s residence during the latter’s absence ip the East, and in searching the cellar foe vegetables the other day the learned professor ran across a few remarkably fine-looking onions, which the servant prepared .(they Were real mild and pleasant onions, and didn’t draw a tear) and boiled ’em—boiled ’em for a day or two, in fact, but they stubbornly refused to yield to hot water —couldn’t cook ’em tender! They were a very hard and solid onion, and, if ornamented with a turnip top, at first sight might easily have been mistaken for that vegetable. One of these onions was about to be submitted to the Academy of Natural Sciences when a neighbor happened in and remarked that It looked to her like a gladiolus bulb! and so it was! The professor never was fond of onions, anyway! —Chicago Post and Mail. —The Sing Sing (N. Y.) Republican relates the following incident: ' “Oh Wednesday afternoon of last week, as Barnes was engaged in the back yard of his residence on Liberty street, he came across a live pirtle. On picking it up he was greatly surprised at finding the names James Ryder and Stephen Aayles, 1833, scratched on the shell. Upon bringing the turtle to the village, and showing it to the abovenamed persons, they remembered the circumstance of the cutting of the names in the turtle’s shell over forty-one years ago, when they were young men.” —Never wait for anything to turn up but go and turn it upfyourself. —lt requires no particular skill to make a blunder. ■ '