Salt Lake Herald | 1890-10-21 | Page 6 | As from a Catapult

As from a Catapult Sunday at one of the shingle mills pnthe e St Augustine road one of the negro hands happy in a plug hat tnd welcome leisure was sitting on a long and heavy pine plank which rested on two cypress logs just inside an open wagon in theshade About fifteen feet of the plank projected into the open air and near it were piled high the great sections of cypress trunks from which the shingles are sawed The unfortunate darky was talking politics with a number of his comrades when the jar of an approaching train affected the pile of cypress butts and the topmost one which was very precariously balanced fell over striking with most disastrous effect one end of the plank on the other extremity ex-tremity of which the negro was reclining The heavy nass weighing many hundred hun-dred pounds hitting the long lever sent the other end skyward with a hurtling rush projecting the luckless darky into space like a stone from a catapult The shed roof was flimsily shingled and his I head struck it like a cannon ball going through as far as his shoulders with a mighty crash Here he stuck suspended by his chin while his companions looked on in awe stricken amazement until his yells for help made them get a ladder with which he was rescued His neck vas badly scratched and cut but his cranium was unhurt I un-hurt Jacksonville TimesUnion