A GENUINE HERO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 107, 15 May 1875, Page 7

A GENUINE HERO.

-HThe fire in the mine at Osago City, Kan., broke out about midday, and, when first discovered, the main slaft in the mino was in a blaze with thirty-two men and boys nearly forty foot below the level of the earth. In a few minutes the whole population of the place rushed to the scone, and a thousand or more men, women, and children — the relatives, friends, and neighbours of the entombed miners — were gathered at the mouth of the burning shaft, stupefied with fear and anguish. All the wells in town had run nearly dry, weeks before, and scarcely enough water could bo secured to subdue the heat abovo ground, much less to arrest the conflagration inside the mine. Thus matters stood for two awful hours, -when a railroad engine arrived with a full tank, which was hurriedly emptied into the shaft, and a great shout of hope went up from the people. At this juncture a man emerged, like a spectre, from the blaze and smoko, and foil in a swoon at the very edge of the shaft. An hour later, two more men mod tip through the flames for help, and a ladder was lowered to them, on which tLey made their way to the top, and were dragged forth alive, but burned and blackened beyond recognition. Three were now saved, but twenty-nine others were still below, and the fire was not yet under control. The terrified crowd stood aghast for a few minutes, and then suddenly a panic of despair seemed to seize them, the stifled moans of the women and children breaking out afresh, and the men drawing back from the mine with blanched and averted faces. The supreme moment of the emergency had come , and the one man to meet it was there. His name was William Marks, and he stepped to the front with the promptness and modesty of a true hero. " Fasten a rope round me, and Ist me down into the shaft," he said. The proposition "was appalling, but down he went into the horrible cavern without another word, and, reaching bottom, freed himself for lias search in the entries diverging from the main shaft. At almost the first step into the stifled darkness, he" stumbled upon the inanimate form of one of the minors in a coal car, which he pushed to the entrance, secured the rope around the body, called to those above to hoist away, and in a moment the man was safe. Further search soon revealed the whereabouts of the remaining twenty-eighf, and slowly, but surely, Marks piloted them to the mouth of the mine and delivered them, one by one— many insensible, but all alive — out of the jaws of death into the hands of their wives and children. Then, when the last one had been rescued, he came himself to the surface, scorched and. blinded, and nearly suffocated, and stood there silently among the cheering towns-people, the master of the situation. , Thus the peril was surmounted without any sacrifice of life ; but the heroism was there all the same. The rescue of the helpless miners, ofad the escape of the man who gave death scorn to save them, spoiled the perfection of a tragedy ; but the destruction of all concerned could not have added to the radiance which belongs to the unselfish bravery o£ William Marks. He was a common working man.