ll gain its reward. It is possible that other rescuers will soon join those already in the mine. It is now reported that twenty bodies were found between the shaft bottom and the sixth entry; that many others have been located near the bottom of the shaft. A report also has it that none of the bodies will be brought to the surface until after night fall.
(from "The Fort Wayne News," Fort Wayne, Indiana Jan. 26, 1904.)
BRING BODIES TO SURFACE
Awful Scenes Are Enacted Today at the Mouth of the Hardwick Mine.
WORK OF RESCUE DIFFICULT
Ice and Water, Foul Air and After Damp Unite to Hinder the Workers.
REMAINS TERRIBLY MANGLED
Forms of the Loved Ones Waited for Are in Condition That Is Revolting.
CHESWICK, Pa., Jan. 27. -- We have sighted fifty-seven bodies in the mine, said inspector Cunningham, as he stepped from the cage at 7 o'clock this morning. Of this number, we have succeeded in getting twenty-two bodies to the bottom of the shaft. Our men are pushing forward as rapidly as possible, locating the bodies and removing the debris obstructing their way. Searchers coming from the mine this morning state that the conditions withing the mine are fast becoming unendurable. The air, poor at best, is now heavily laden with the odor of decomposing bodies. A car load of burial caskets arrived this morning and are being carted to the improvised morgue, where, after the bodies have been prepared for interment, the families will be admitted to identify them.
Hard to Enter the Shaft.
The bodies which are lying at the bottom of the shaft are ready to be brought to the surface, but the shaft has become so encrusted with ice that it is now impossible to drop the cage to the bottom. Until the accumulation is picked away the bodies must remain in the mine. The work of removing this obstruction is progressing as rapidly as possible. This is the information given by the tired workers who came from the pit at 7 o'clock this morning. The cheerless dawn had brought little news and no comfort to the band of thoroughly chilled and weary watchers that can not be persuaded to abandon their vigil at the top of the shaft. The workmen who came out this morning differ in their estimate of the number of bodies now at the bottom of the shaft. One stated that there were twenty-two, another eighteen. Three said they had counted twenty. Others tell of seeing more that a hundred bodies in various parts of the mine, and with few exceptions they agree that all of the bodies are horribly mutilated, scorched and torn.
Watchers Still Hope.
But it is the simple faith of the women and old men gathered around the mine mouth which is simply wonderful. With child-like simplicity, sympathy or blindness to the awful facts, they are yet trusting and hoping against hope that the living faces of their loved ones will be seen again. As the moment approaches when the mine must give up its secret and its dead, the scenes about the opening are so intensely tragic, so infinitely pitiful that none would dare describe in detail the horrors of it. Today the climax of the tragedy will be enacted today the dead will be disclosed to the vision of the living and the heart-wearing grief, suppressed for a time, now breaks forth in the outbursts of agony and despair. An awful, indescribable pathos is swelling over the valley and its little village of Harwick, a throbbing grief seems to pervade the very air of the countryside. It is a situation to burst asunder the stoutest nerve cords.
Bodies Coming Out.
At 9 o'clock the words, although in whispered tones, the bodies are coming out, spread with the rapidity of an electric flash and in a incredible time a multitude surrounded the yawning chasm. The little pulley wheel, high in the air, over which slowly passed the heavy cable attached to the hoisting cage, moved fast, but, oh, how slowly did the cable seem to travel. Ages seemed to fly, but it was only a moment until the cage was in view. An unspeakagle horror was presented. A sight it cannot be described came from the earth into God's sunlight. It was a hellish trap, that Harwick mine, e