HEROES OF PEACE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6138, 26 March 1898, Page 2

HEROES OF PEACE.

[By Gustav Kobbe.]

(Tiie Century.)

It is often reserved for " every-day people," as we are apt to call them, to illustrate one of the facts of life — that a crisis produces the man to meet it.

This article deals with a few such people — people who led simple and unpretentious lives, and in whom their most intimate friends had probably never surpected a strain of the heroic.

One of the heroes I have in mind was Thomas Hovenden, the artist, who sacrificed his life in attempting to save a little girl. She was no relative of his ; he had never even seen her before her moment of peril — circumstances wliich combine to make his sacrifice peculiarly heroic.

Hovenden was Irish by birth, but he had come to New York in 1863, when eighteen years old, and had studied at the National Academy of Design. He hai then taken a studio in the house of his friend Bolton Jones, in Philadelphia, where he remained until 1874. From there he went to Paris, and studied under Cabanel, of whom he was a favourite pupil. His " Breton Interior of 1793 " (showing a family moulding bullets and sharpening swords), "Puzzled Voter," "Last Moments of John Brown," and " Elaine " were widely known ; while his " Breaking Old Ties " has probably been more frequently engraved than any other American painting.

One August afternoon in 1895, Hovenden was returning by trolley-car from his country residence to Norristown, Pennsylvania. The trolley ran to what was known as the " Trenton cut-off " of the Pennsylvania Railroad, where the passengers were obliged to alight and cross the railroad track at grade to take trolley on the other side.

The passengers had just alighted from the first trolley when a fast freight-train came thundering down the track. A little girl who failed to notice the train ran ahead of her mother and right in front of ifc. The engineer gave a shrill blast; of the whistle. The child, seeing the train bearing down upon her, became dazed, and stood as if ROOTED TO THE SPOT. A moment later Hovenden had rushed forward and snatched up the child. But before he could take the leap which would have saved them both, the engine struck them and hurled them across the track. They were found lying side by side. The artist was dead ; the little girl died as she was lifted from the ground. The fatal outcome showed how desperate a chance he took.

Through a sacrifice as noble as Hovenden's, a woman in one of the humblest walks of life heroically met her desth.

Ellen McGaugh was a servant employed in Montclair, New Jersey. On one of heiafternoons "out" she was visiting at Newark. While she was standing at a street-corner with a group of friends, -they heard her give a sudden scream, and saw her rush toward the middle of the street. A little girl wason the trolley-track, and speeding toward her was a cai-.

Ellen sprang in front of the car, and pushed the child from the track ; but before she could save herself she was struck by the car and was under the wheels. The child was only slightly bruised ; but Ellen died of.herinjuriesiu the ambulance on the way to the hospital. *

For her to see the little girl's peril, to; spring to the child's rescue, and to be her-* self crushed beneath the wheels, was the act of only a moment ; but in that moment this serving- woman was transformed into a heroine. Her body did not lie in state, and no public memorial bears witness to her deed. Yet is not the difference between her heroism and that of a public hero a difference, not in degree, but only in result? Where the public hero saves a nation, the every-day hero may savo only a life; but where thepublio hero finds an incentive for his act in the possible acclaim of a whole nation, the every-day hero sacrifices his life with no' incentive save that of humanity.

One of the medals awarded by the Government for heroism displayed in saving life at sea is worn by a negro, and one of my every-day heroes also belongs to that race. That he escaped with his life from the rescue in which he figured was not due to any caution on his parfc, but simply to lucky chance.

Scott Brown is a hard-working, honest negro of Montgomery, Alabama; and if all of his race had set about improving their lot as he has, the " negro question " would have been eliminated long ago : for Scott has a littlo home for wliich he has finished paying, a waggon, two horses and two mules, and the necessary utensils for running a small farm. In winter he drives a dray. One day recently Scotfc was standing ■ at a corner of Court Street. Two little girls, six and eight years old, were crossing. At that moment a runaway horse came dashing down the street. The runaway was almost upon tne children when Scott became aware of their peril. On the instant he sprang to their rescue. One he pushed out ot the horse's way mth the impetus that lmd carried him to thespofc. Eeahsmg^hat there was no time toget the other child out of the runaway's path, he DELIBERATELY SHIELDED HER WITH HIS BODY he himself receiving th e blow that would have struck her. While his own ujuries were fortunately not *^' Jft af . w ?£ severe; and tHfere is nodoubfc^afcjus

action saved two children surely from g.-c-at bodily harm, and probably from death.

The3e children were members of tbo CourfcStreet Methodist Episcopal Suud-iy school, which unanimously voted to sl.ov some recognition o. Scott's brave deed. So a committee was appointed, which bought a watch and chain ; and this gift suitably inscribed was presented to Scott in the Sundayschool - room, which had rarely been so crowded. As this modest, unassuming negro left the Sunday school after the presentation, he was loudly cheered; and oneof the many who took him by the hand remarked, "Scott, I'd rather shake your hand than the President's."

Before the fast steamship City of Paris had changed her name to the Paris, she met, on one of her eastward trips, with an accident with imperilled the thousand lives aboard her, and kept many more people on two continents in a state of anxious suspense for several days. The steamer was making what promised to be a record-breaking ruu. It was halfpast five in the evening of the day before that on which she was expected to steam gaily into Queenstown harbour.

That moment, with a smooth sea and a clear sky, there was a sudden crash of machinery and timber, an outpour of steam from the engine-room hatches, a trembling of the ship from stem to stern, an almost immediate list to .the starboard, and on deck the sharp command, " Clear the lifeboats !"

Seven men, engineers and " greasemen," had rushed up from the engine-room to escape the scalding steam and flying machinery. What had happened none of them could tell. But what was happening ? For down there was still a crashing and thrashing, as if everything were being smashed to pieces. Into that roaring, steaming hell there plunged a man. A few moments later the uproar had ceased, and he emorged again. He had stopped the machinery, and, as investigation showed, probably saved the ship.

The engine-room was a water-tight com-parfcment-7-virtually, in fact, two watertight compartments in one; for a steel bulkhead separated the starboard from the port engine, and it was supposed that with this arrangement, whatever might happen to one engine, the other would remain intact. But the accident to the Paris was one that wrought havoc with all the calculations of human ingenuity. The starboard engine had broken. Ita wreck continued revolving. Part of this was a broken rod, which

ACTED LIKE A GIANT FLAIL,

beating down everything in its way, among other things battering and breaking through the steel bulkhead between the two engines. It was the destructive work of this flail that John Gill, one of the second assistant engineers, checked when he shut off the steam. Some of the broken pieces of machinery had already dropped below. Had they been followed by other and more massive portions, which doubtless would have smashed through the bottom of the ship, she would probably have sunk like an iron pot. When, at the imminent risk of his own life, Gill stopped the machinery, he saved the souls it bore. He is now one of the chief engineers of the American Line.

James Bain, chief engineer of the illfated steamer State of Florida, not only risked his life, but deliberately sacrificed it, to save a woman. The disaster was most pitiful. The steamer collided with a barque in mid-ocean, and both vessels sank almost immediately. Only two men were saved from the barque, and only a handful of passengers and part of the ship's company rom the steamer. Bain was safely in one of the lifeboats, which was about to cast off, as there were as many people in ifc as it could hold. At that moment he saw a woman at the steamer's rail. She was too dazed to move. The steamer's deck was almost level with the water. ..Bain deliberately loft his place . in the. boat, stepped on to the steamer's deck, lifted the womau over the taffraiLplaced .her on the seat he had occupied, cast off the boat, and went down with the steamer.

An enterprise that attracted wide attention at the time was the attempt to tunnel the Hudson River between Jersey Cityand New York. It was of the first importance to commerce, for ifc would afford direct access to New York to to the railroads having their termini on the New Jersey side of the river. It involved a novel and difficult feat of engineering, and for the public it had the added fascination of danger. The veriest layman appreciated the peril in which the workmen would be the moment the tunnel penetrated beyond shore under the river's bed. Night and day be one to them ; above them the great fleet of steamers, tugs, ferry-boats, and sailing craft of all kinds would pass and re-pass ; over them, as they dug and picked and hammered and welded down there in the depth and the darkness, would roll the billows of one of the great waterways of the Western hemisphere. What would be between them and this ever-threatening flood ? At the extreme end, where the work was being extended out farther and farther underthe bed of the river, a mere shell of silt and mud and ooze, sustained by compressed i air— a device as yet untried in exactly this class of work, and considered by some engineering authorities of doubtful value. If these doubts proved true, if that thin shell gave way, the Hudson River would pour in upon the men* in the tunnel, and they would be ■ DROWNED LIKE RATS IN A HOLE. It was man against; Nature with Nature represented by a great river directly overhead.

Into this narrow tube of brick and iron under the bed of the river the workmen descended in shifts of twenty-pight each, iit intervals of eight hours. They knew that every time they entered the tunnel they took their lives in their hands; but each shift took the chance that the accident, if any, would happen to the others.

One midnight twenty-eight men went into the tunnel. Oniy seven oame out alive. They owed their escape to the fact that of the twenty-one who perished, one deliberately sacrificed his life to save theirs.

One midnight a shift of men went down ( the shaft as usual, entered the air-lock. I remained there the customary length of |time, and then went into the tunnel. They ■were in charge of a foreman named Feter Woodland, a Dane, who had been in this country nine years, and had been employed at the tunnel since the beginning of the work. At half-past four in the morning some of the men prepared to go lip for lunch. At that time the dangerpoint must have remained unguarded for a fatal interval. Suddenly there was a sound like the blowing off of steam. Woodland sprang to the spot, crying : " Back, men, and stop the leak ! But, where a moment before there had been a, hole that might have been stopped with a pinch of clay, there was now a rapidly widening gap. Under it stood Peter Woodland. The foul bottom of the river was pouring in upon him ; ooze and slime were blinding him; he felt the water rising about his feet. One step would have taken him safely into the air-lock; of all the men, he was nearest safety. He did nofc move toward it. Standing there by the entrance, he shouted .-

" Quick,, boys ! Get into the lock !"

But he did . not lead the retreat. As each man came along, he pushed and shoved him through the rising ooze and water into the air-lock. Seven men had passed him. As he was helping the eighth, the iron roof-plates gave way, felled the man in the doorway, and pinned the door against him. Several men inside the airlock grasped the prostrate man and tried to draw him in. Ho was dead, and pinned fast. The heavy iron plates against the door made it impossible to open this and the man's body in the. doorway made it impossible to closo it by a few. inches Through this narrow space water began pouring from the tunnel into the airlock*

ESCAPE HAD BEEN CUT OFF

for Woodland hnd the twenty men behind him, and the men _ in the air-lock were- in danger of drowning ; for the Compressed air which had entered it from the tunnel

made it impossible for them to open the inward-swinging door at the other end. " Take off your clothes and stop up tlie doorway ! " shouted Woodland, who was now above his waist in water. The men in the air-lock stripped themselves and thrust their clothing into > tne crack. The air-lock was now half full « water, and while the inflow waß checked, it was not wholly stopped. The water andthe pressure of the air made their "BAUO efforts to tear open the door at the shaft end of the lock still unavailing. There was a bull's-eye in each door. The • man nearest the door leading into the tunnel was attracted by a sound, and, 1 looking, saw Woodland peering at him. through tho bull's-eye. The water was up to his armpits. Beyond him were blurred, watery heads. . Then he heard Wo.odland-a-

voice:. '.■•■• ■ ■•*. ..#■<•*• "Break open the outside • bull •&■*• eye!" ■ -..-,-.- * -'*..-. y.-y The men in the air-lock were . npt.-oc^-wards; it had required a certain degree of. courage to work-in the tunnel. They knew if thoy knocked out the bull's-eye, and the air escaped through it, thoir chances of tearing open the door would be improved ; but they also knew that with the outrußh of air from the lock andthe tunnel the roof about the leak would come crashing down, and the last desperate chance for Woodland and his twenty hemuied-m men be gone. They hesitated. Woodland must have noticed their hesitation, for he called :

" Knock it out ! It's your only chance !" Then for the first time his voice wavered as he added : " And if you're saved, try and do what you can for the reßt of ub !"

They smashed the bull's-eye, and tore at the door. At the same time they felt pressure applied from the outside. The door yielded slightly. The water began pouring out of the lock into the shaft. Relieved of this weight and of the air pressure, the door swung in, and

SEVEN NUDE AND TERRIFIED MEN were literally shot into the shaft, where the Water gained upon tbem so rapidly that they had to take to the ladder for safety. The cavinjj in of a shed near the waters edge had given warning to two men above that something was wrong below. * They had hurried down the Bhaft, and haa reached the air-lock door just as the bull's eyo was smashed. ■. The nine men paused at the brink of the shaft. As they looked down intoTt, and^H then cast a glance at the river, they, saw that both were on a level. The water of ■ the Hudson had filled the tunnel and the W air-lock, and risen in the shaft to the height of the tide. Thafc tho twenty-one ' men in the tunnol had met their doom there < couldjbe no doubt.

Before Woodland came to this country he had been a sailor. For nine years ho had been employed, chiefly in bridge-building, by the superintendent of the tunnel work. Once before, while working on a bridge at Little Rock, Arkansas, he had had a chance to show his grit. Part of the structure waa carried away by a flood during a savage electrical storm. Woodland, by staying while most of the others fled, saved much of the remaining portion. One of his arms was partly paralyzed by the lightning that played about the irou trestles at the height of the storm ; but he only smiled at those who had sought safety, and stuck to his post.

To appreciate fully what Peter Woodland did in the tunnel disaster, one mnst recall for an instant the circumstances under which he met his death.

Weighing well all things, I say deliberately than Peter Woodland, a plain man but little . above his own working-men in rank, performed an act of heroism as sublime as any of which the history of the world contains a record.