BILL NYE IN A SAW-MILL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4863, 30 November 1883, Page 4

BILL NYE IN A SAW-MILL.

I bave just returned from a trip to the North Wisoonsin railway, whereil went to oatoh a string of codfish and anything else tbat might be contagious. Northern Wisconsin is the plaoe where they yank a big wet log into a mill and turn into oash as quiok as a railway man oan draw his salary out of the pay. oar. The log is held on a oarriage by means of iron dogs while it is being worked into lumber. These iron dogs are not like those we see on the front steps of a brown* stone front occasionally. They are another breed of dogs. The managing editor of tbe mill lays out the log in his mind and works it into dimension stuff, shingle bolts, slabs, edgings, two by fours, two by eights, two by sixes, &0., so as to use the goods to the best advantage, just as a woman takes a dress pattern and outs it so she won't have to pieoe the front breadths, and will have enough left to make a polonaise for the last summer's gown. I stood there for along time watohing the various saws and listening to their monotonous growl, and wishing that I had been born a successful timber thief instead of a poor boy without a rag on my baok. At one of theie mills, not long ago, a man backed up to get away from the carriage, and thoughtlessly baoked against a large saw tbat was revolving at the rate of about 200 times a minute. The saw took a large chew of tobaooo from the plug he had in his pistol pooket, and then began on him. But there's no use going into details. Suoh things are not obeerful. They gathered him up out of tbe sawdust and put him in a nail keg and oarried him away, but he did not speak again. Life was quite extinct. Whether it was the nervous shock that killed him, or the concussion of the cold saw that killed him, no one ever knew. The mill shut down a oouple of hours so that the head sawyer oould file his saw, and the work was resumed onoe more.. We should learn from this never to lean on the buzz saw when it moveth itaelf aright.