Show I PROVIDENCE KEEPS A WATCHFUL EYE ON THE BABIES GUARDIANSHIP IS VIGILANT Extraordinary Adventures of New York Children Who Have Tumbled Sometimes for Five Stories < and Escaped What Seemed Certain Death III I UAi ii 4 f w i I I v > 7 c st IL lS S 1 S fi kdIL s = x far a f lr NARTfr CALLED FOR HER PAPA TO CATCH HER YORKln New York city of many thrills there is NEW more remarkable than the narrow escapes in its child world The special guardianship exercised over babies big and little Is especially vigilant in the summer time for then more than over are children exposed to the dangers of Manhattans burly burly outdoor life Clangg gRound g-Round the corner the perfectly drilled horse dashes He heads for a huddled crowd almost without guidance guid-ance from the reins If it Is in the crowded tenement district perhaps in his wise old head ho knows just what sort of n case is waiting for the ministration of the young surgeon who swings lightly from the tail of the ambulance The crowd breaks making a narrow avenue for the surgeon Ills keen eye glimpses first the figure of a mother almost prostrate on the pavement pave-ment and beyond a smaller figure ominously stiff Instinctively he glances upward to the fire escapes now crowded with whitefaced tenement dwellers Which was ItthIrd or fourth fioorho wonders In that Instant of crossing the sidewalk The surgeons examination IB hurried hur-ried Tho little white lips do not open to tell him where It hurts The awful limpness of the thin little figure fig-ure would strike terror to any one save an ambulanco surgeon I dont know he says crisply to the torrent of questions from the mother The policeman makes way for the doctor who with the limp little lit-tle figure In his arms swings Into the ambulance the driver gives the signal to tho wise old horseand they are off FOLLOW THE AMBULANCE After them goes the mother wringing wring-ing her hands and walling to high Heaven And with her n stream of sympathetic friends all bound for tho hospital Poor little kIddie I guess thats his finish all right exoalnis a Y sightseer new to the crowded East or West side and turns on his heel When he gets back to Indlanapolln or Duluth ho will tell em how babies are killed In New York Didnt he Bee It with his own eyes Hut that Is because he did not follow fol-low the ambulance and the mother and the stream of sympathetic neighbors neigh-bors I If he had well this Is what he would have seen In tho wnltlngroom the mother rehearsing again and again tho story of the accident It had been such a dreadful nIght thai last nIghtwith sleep for no one In the house And her husbands breakfast break-fast to got daybreak The rooms wero so hot Tho baby fretted so she tucked him Into a clothes basket and left him there by the window to play or Blip while she took just n few winks of bitterlyneeded sleep Heaven only knows how clever baby fingers accomplish such wonderful wonder-ful escapes Apparently baby was securely se-curely fastened in that clothes basket but with all the skill of the stage export ex-port In lock picking and knot untying the wee hands loosened the detaining bonds the baby ear attuned to catch childish laughter in the street below urged the baby knees to creep over the inviting window ledge and the catastrophe ca-tastrophe was accomplished BABY SOON ALL RIGHT Just as she reaches this point In her narrative nnd a murmur of sympathy sym-pathy buzzes through the hot reception recep-tion room word comes that tho mother may enter the ward Hell be all right In a day or two says the surgeon curtly No bones broken 110 bad contusions no internal Inter-nal hemorrhage You can thank tho quilts your neighbors wero airing for that Cpmo back tomorrow at two and you can see him all right Maybe May-be you can take him home Tho good doctalr cries the woman and The good doctalr echo I her sympathetic neighbors as they wend their triumphant way back to tenementlnnd And sure enough In tho next day or so babykln conies home as good as new and the mothers who have been exercising unusual precautions in regard to firocscnpes and open windows forget again Only tho good God who loves little children chil-dren and guards them against a million mil-lion metropolitan dangers does not forget writes Anna Stecso Richardson Richard-son in The World Sometimes it is the window or an nlrshaft which offers baby an avenue of escape to what proves perilous freedom Sometimes the children are sent to play on a roof which apparently appar-ently Is securely fenced by a good high coping Sometimes an awnIng breaks tho flight through space Or perhaps it Is a friendly clothes line or a pile of soft rubbish Tho variety of falls and escapes therefrom In Now York is almost as great as Its population Tho ono greater thing is that with a record of a desperate fall n week ago through out the hot weather term such a smallsuch a splendidly small percentage per-centage of the accidents end fatally FELL DOWN THE AIRSHAFT For Instance there was the marvelous marvel-ous escape of those two Brooklyn tots Catherine Morlnrlty just past her second birthday and Mario Clark two years her elder who live In the fivestory tenement at No 22 Front street They went to the roof one day to play Ring around a rosy these two wero playing and having a lovely time that day They would swing around and around until they quite lost their balance Then suddenly a frightful thing happened They swung too close to the glass skylight and fell hand in hand through the glass and down the alrshaft As they plunged headforemost through CO feet of space to the bottom bot-tom of the shaft their screams brought every one In the building to the roof Little Mario being the heavier of the two struck the bottom first and her little playmate fell pn top of her partially I par-tially breaking the fall But the Unseen I Un-seen Hand had stretched out to save i Mario A bundle of old newspapers thrown into the shfift lay at tho bottom bot-tom between the bones of the baby and the stone pavement Tho shaft was too small for a man to climb down and rescue the children I chil-dren The windows too that opened on It were mere slits In the tfall Yet the children must be rescued by some i one at some hour Next door was a llrohouso and to this the frantic mothers ran Firemen with axes and poles hurried Into the building and in almost less time than It takes to tell it they had torn a great hole in the wnll along the side of the shaft The children wero lifted out and burred bur-red to the hospital Now they arc at home and were It not for a telltale little scar each will carry all her life no one need ever know they had been hurt SAVED BY CLOTHES LINES Quite as remarkable was the escape of Master Snmmlo WeIntraub of No 70 Stanton street This tenement Is six stories high and SammIe Wein traub fell nil the way from the top to the bottom but six pairs of clotheslines clothes-lines all weighted down with clean clothes went with him and when the ambulance surgeon unwound the yards and yards of clothes lines and laundry from Sammie all they could find as n souvenir of his tumble was a little cut on his forehead Little Margaret Hart who at the time she took her tumble lived at No I960 Dean street Brooklyn chose Just the nicest place she could to land T Aji d S l r ar L f r I MAR C I r S a 1 I I t 1 1 J MI C r J J assts TORE A GREAT HOLE IN THE SIDE OF THE SHAFT in her fall from the second story of the building She was standing on the fireescape watching her papa down In the yard below when she lost her balance What was more natural than for her to call to her papa to catch her And ho did it Baby Helen Graf n 21monthsold tot who lives at No 13S7 Webster avenue owes her escape to two strong little arms that her father has boasted of all his lICe She was playIng play-Ing on the landing of the fifth floor of the fire escape when a misstep sent her plunging down towards the ground At the fourth floor however her tiny hands struck the Iron rounds of the ladder Instinctively she clutched one of the rounds and hung on with all her baby might Her mother rescued her OWES LIFE TO AWNING Sixteen montiiold Grace Sleboldt who lives at No 247 Tenth street Brooklyn fell four floors the other day but n good strong awning directly direct-ly beneath the window from which she had fallen held out Its protecting Sloboldt arms and as n result Baby rolled gently to the sidewalk little the worse for her 50foot fall Little James Dellbla who despite his live years Is still much of a mammas boy fell from the third floor of his home at No 306 East Ono Hundred and Tenth street Two good strong clot lines however saved Jimmy from harm The lifesaving clothes line again came to the rescue when Sammy RabInowitz four years old of No 300 Georgia avenue Brooklyn fell from a window of the third story of his home and landed on his feet practically prac-tically unhurt Clothes lines had caught him and after holding him suspended In the air a moment dropped him lightly to the pavement What saved twoyearold Peter Gob hardt when ho fell from tho fourth floor of his home at No 410 West Thirtyninth street no one will ever know There were neither clotheslines clothes-lines awnings nor anything visible to save him Yet notwithstanding he landed on the sidewalk unharmed An ambulance surgeon failed to find even so much as a scratch on the little fellow |