WALL STREET EXPLOSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17650, 10 December 1920, Page 8

WALL STREET EXPLOSION.

AUSTRALIAN'S EXPERIENCE. SHOWERS OF BROKEN GLASS: 1 After being seriously wounded in; an encounter with an armed burglar at his home in Sydney. Mr. \V. A. Dettman paid a visit to New York, only to be injured again in the terrible Wall Street explosion on September 22 last. Writing to a friend in Sydney, he says:—, . "I left the Bank of Montreal at 12 noon and walked west : past Morgan's banking building,'. and' could have touched tho brown horse in the waggon standing alongside the kerb. When I had gone exactly i 33 yards I received a crack on my right shoulder, heard fa terrific explosion, ( and was simply ; thrown flat into ; the middle of Wall Street. :' Thero were hundreds of , others who were similarly treated. My ears almost- burst, ; my -eyes : burned as if on fire, and broken glasii was showered and;struck .me all : over, just like very i heavy' drops of rain. ' i "As I turned my- head I saw a great i volume of ; yellow smoke, ;' with piece* of i wood' and Stone flying 200 feet high; •; Men . were lying all over the place, and the ■ sight—many ; were stripped of ; all clothing l —was awful to look at. The cries of the | injured and dying men, too, were pitiful. < , "The death list is now 35,' The injured ,* treated in the hospitals numbered just over , 300, and hundreds, like myself, were only , shocked and knocked down. My only in- : jury was a cut on the right" thumb, caused , by ; falling glass,. two ' small cuts ;on my clothes, the bang on the j shoulder, and : a , stiff right arm through falling on it. Heft ; Sydney to see life, but I am seeing more death than life, : , . . , ; : "The day. following /the:;'explosion I j visited , the site again, and even $ then it J was awful to look at the pieces' of human . flesh and blood splashed on tho walls cn both sides of the street, to the height of ; about 40 feet. The solid granite walls of ' the Assay Buildings and the concrete walls ; of Morgan's Bank had great holes torn in ; them, the largest of which-was in one ; largo granite block four feet from the foot- ; path." That was' about three inches in ; diameter and ' eight incn deep; ■ There | were over a thousand smaller ones made ; with steel slugs,; of , which; nearly 4001b. s have been gathered up by, the police. The , bomb,' it was estimated, | weighed from 10 f to 20, cwt. Over ten tons of plateglass fell 1 in the street - from , two blocks, hardly " a 3 pane : being • left. • The great plate-glass ; dome in Morgan's Bank fell in, .. killing s and wounding. a few, but. fortunately the f building was not crowded at the time, i. "Of the . ; mystery waggon, as it ,is r called, only ; the axle, steel ; tyres, and : a t few pieces of- wood were found. Several r- motor-cars ' were v ' absolutely J smashed to