| Show RISKING DEATH FOR A LIVING thousands of new yorkers earn their bread by imperiling Impe riling their lives yearly eight thousand or to be exact seven thousand nine hundred and twelve persons in the five boroughs ot this greater city were reported to the police and health authorities during the past year to have met with accidental deaths or to be unaccountably this IB the astonishing revelation disclosed in the mortuary report filed a few days ago with the department of health it suggests the startling question whether death and danger are more native to peace than to war vastly exceeding as this doea the of actual recorded ot the spanish american war and remembering mem bering that while war Is an intermittent evil this alarming death roll Is growing rather than diminishing from year to year the startling answer that peace la tar more dangerous than war in the matter of earning a i dully livelihood this la the avowed opinion ot com Bilas loner lederle and while the rus lederle and while the rus over manchuria one haa but to travel over manhattan island in a my to become convinced that the occupation of othello Is a tame one compared with the dangerous trades to watch ot men and women in this representative community resort b day and night in order to keep the from the door if he wayfarer have imagination and and a degree of human sympathy an excursion may be some tiling like a trip through a chamber ot horrors why because a wayfaring observer in the iron realms of toll may be haunted by the ghoulish law of afe be belief tnt all life to ex let most destroy afe that men somehow are driven along in discord or con the throbbing ot the of fau from he new suspension wage the east river oae nay fee journey seven lives have been fl on ly the giant of itry in spinning abe baat web that now laces acid long islands together to a network of cables and strands known aal the taday the great spider broods and lounges with tired ayea bait open in contemplating the work now nearing completion the thousands 0 spectators who saw the bridge dedicated a few months ago hardly realize the peril that the huge contract meant and means for the builders lit cry working day tiny black specks have been plodding to and fro in a tangle of ropes and cables that resembled fairy threads from below those shadowy specks crawling high in the air have swung anio place tons of cable so high in the air hang those great ropes BO airy and fragile in outline are those towers that no person gazing upward from river or shore can realize the dimensions of everything connected with the giant swing it Is only when one Is up on the structure itself that the true proportion of the aerial roadway and the tremendous danger of the builders become apparent six days in every seven an army ot men have ignored danger in balancing themselves on the heights with their lives in their hands they have done this for wages not more than sufficient to maintain themselves and their tarn alles and they have done it eo long that their eyes have become used to the peril only when one of them over balances and with a trailing cry plunges into the air and water below are those bridge builders made aware of their danger long enough to entertain a momentary sickening tear that passes away almost as eoon a it comes and leaves them on the belg hta taking a cab at the bridge the connoisseur in dangerous modes of livelihood while driving to the city hall park subway entrance may consider the life of the cabman on the box day and night in rain or sunshine wet to the skin or dry as fever the cabman pursues bis trade constant exposure and irregular hours render him prematurely old by eloway and surely sapping his vitality they generally die at the rate of 1482 as against 1000 of tho male population in the normal lines of trade arriving at the subway and descending into its cavernous jaws aa did a writer for the times yesterday in company with one of the subway contractors one can reflect while traversing the underground routes from the city hall to harlem that there has been victim tor every square ot ground above our remarkable tunnel has in no wise been due to negligence or any fault on the part ot the contractors tor extraordinary precautions have been taken to protect property as well as life while the giant mole has been burrowing under the half million homes on manhattan island perhaps the wonder Is that more tragedies have not marked the progress of the subway since its genesis and yet when as contractor john B mcdonald promises the subway Is thrown open for business on sept 1 it will have claimed an appalling number of victims victims simply of a dangerous trade the park avenue tragedy la too recen TTo need recalling it suffices to eay that this dangerous stage may be illuminated by a flare of powder or shaken by a blast of dynamite at any moment and the actors aa well as spectators blown away of course the humble ac tora are the who prepare and fire the explosives these players are never applauded but when an accident la caused by an unsteady eye or hand they are hissed and even driven from the stage 0 labor behind the subway scenes luric other flangers fl angera in the preparation and manufacture of explosives properly speaking no explosives are manufactured in city or the immediate neighborhood it fireworks be excepted cd but as the public was reminded the other day when in the government target practice near sandy hook a tremendous detonation shook staten island fre quent casualties occur while uncle barn keeps in training for war coney island visitors passing through Homo crest and brighton beach may notice everyday a number of tin covered box houses midway between the two places within those queer looking sheds are made tons ot fireworks every year ot which most are or use in the pain spectacular productions every now and then something goes wrong a misplaced fuse or a lighted cigar thrown into a powder can by a careless workman and the deaths that lurk in powder flare up in staring news headlines fire fighting must also have a prominent place in the dangerous trades of the city gotham may be said never to close its fourscore argus eyes in the shape of fire engine companies day and night those eyes are open and watching over the tolling or sleeping city one thousand nine hundred and eltty alx men follow this trade in manhattan they seem never quite to earn the right to rest it Is their business to keep awake probably the hardest trade ever followed this fire fighting Is a caving trade by it the city eaves untold millions to anxious pockets by it the firemen save lives by squandering lives their own but chief croker says the city does not have much trouble in finding recruits to fill the gaping ranks from year to year only second to firemen in the public eye as boarders of danger are the over caricatured cops who never know in what shadowy comer of society a peril may be lurking twelve thousand two hundred men in round numbers are following this trade A few days ago a thrilling scene was enacted on the root of one of the tallest and most imposing smirch edifices in this city it barely escaped being a tragedy of the most terrible nature A hundred spectators were gazing spell abound at a steeplejack steep lejack at work on the dizzy apex of the roof from his eyrie the man looked like a lilliputian he was leaning over a ledge that hung over a sheer depth of two hundred feet suddenly a sharp gust of wind whipped the cloth cap from his head and dropped it on the root below this steeple climber chose to hazard hla life in order to recover his can he leaned over and started down the slippery root overbalanced over balanced tried to throw backward and in ifko space of a eingle gasp found himself on the fiat of his back sliding hieak foremost down the In clina the horror of the moment was in some way the man stopped himself aa he lay there as he said afterward vath his head lower than bis feet it beeme i to him that he was swinging over tha vast depth atthe sky his brain grew confused his eyes full of blood and as he stared upward the gray cicada seemed to grow crimson by means his pincers be finally reached the in safety an ha icae at work on the cornice why it was his meana of livelihood for only the few are ablerto choose their occupations following industries of the more exacting sorts such as railway firemen piano movers land others too numerous to mention tha men can continue in their only so long as their bodily strength does not give way only from illness or age or an accident are they compelled to turn to bome fome less strenuous employment or descend to the sad lot of those who are described as having no settled occupation it Is from gach ranks that cab drivers many street car men and white wings are recruited eking out a living in this manner their lives slowly dwindle away strange as it may seem the martah ity among musicians Is very high la this city as the health records reveal according to one expert statistician their comparative mortality is 1214 or more than twice that of agriculture ests and exceeding by one third that of general laborers death from phthisis reaps a rich harvest among musicians and in the gleaning Is found a heavy mortality from diseases of tha nervous circulatory and digestive organs this class includes street musicians sic ians then there are those stifling tomb named sweatshops by courtesy dwor hundred thousand persons mostly women says the health department depend upon their sweatshop wag to keep body and soul together the thread by which they bind themselves to life is a frail and deagro inq enough among the that come aad go from tho metropolis via fihs ihs ecari of radiating railway ilott bow maar ever turn thought of he engineer over in their mind thada are ansas or making their homes in this city and tta environs in their bands are at tome time or other a of tha five million lives la the district A wavering glanco or ing hand would bo and ottea la fatal to engineer and passengers so the explorer among the trades may go on forever lito Tennys onlan brook he might d beu on the risks run by on the men who paint and din of lung poisoning and on the thoua and and ono forms of peril that lurk in this vast worling alve pt bunin and thadows called horii u the new bridge at alapit one may climb again to t dizzy conning tower anal ine down on new tork fb he shadow may muse on acha nervous lighta that cra arl up through ha darkness and then back into aown the river and paralleling the bridge dortho row of lights may be seen crossing and ln the river like bridge north and south a vague rattle continued oa paga KU wn DEATH FOR A LIVING continued from page 9 the clevard trains are moving among the streets the surface cars glide in ghostly silence broken at intervals by a clang ac bells denoting increasing speed and by a weary creek as they come to a standstill down on the river tho red and green of the terries grope and search around in the darkness the ot tho great ocean liners Is incessant and the dwindling echoes are vague and and every one of these means dangerous trade among the more scattered trades and those that appear on the surface are looping the loop and gap aad bih diving as well as training are not acance who will tike their lives on their bicycles and the feat first performed in this city at madson square garden once in a while a man or woman comes forward ready to leap from a breathless height into a net or th water it waa while making a hundred and water leap at rockaway beach that leynaud lost his life again there Is the peril of diving as was shown recently when a man was caught in the suction at the bottom of the passaic reservoir and of men who follow the sea tor a liv teg the atlantic coast life savers are in a class by themselves volumes might be about them and still halt the dangers they face would not be told rest new york ass so many dangerous trades to follow with a steady hand that it hardly has time to rest it Is the city of unrest and commas lederle Is not far wrong when i ho declares that peace Is more dangerous than war new york times |
