Frightful Death

[From the New York World.] Samuel E. Hardman, of Providence, B. I. , while exhibiting a new flre-escape at the Astor House yesterday, feil from the window next but one to the roof to the sidewalk and was instantly killed. Mr. Hardman arrived at the Astor House yesterday morning, engaged a room, and at about 1 o'clock asked at the office for a room more conveniently situated, where he might have an opportunity of exhibiting the Kenyon fire-escape of which he was the manufacturer. The clerks at the office accordingly directed Walter Hatton, one of ie negro bellDoys, to show Hardman to No. 322. one of the rooms on the top story in a direct line above the porch on the Broadway entrance. Hardman entered the room, opened the window, looked out, and, shaking his head, remarked to the bellboy that it was too high. The boy asked liim whether he would not nrefer to make the experiment from some room where the arcliway would not interfere with his desoen t. "Oh, no," said Hardman, confidently: " I want to come down directly in front of the Broadway entranee, wh ere everybody will see me." He was then shown to room No. 232, just beneath the first. Hardman, as before, looked out, apparently measuring the height from the window to the ground. Satisfled with his inspection, he began at once the preparations for his descent. He fastened a cable-wire to the lower part of a bed-post. This wire rolls on a drmn, circular in shape, and about six inches in diameter ; the wire, which is not much larger than a piece of ordinary twine, revolves about the drum, while attached to the wire itself is a brake which increases or retards the speed of the person descending. While Mr. Hardman was engaged in his preparations two chambermaids entered the room, and they, together with the negro porter, were the only persons wiui wie uniortiuiate man at the timo of tho disaster. While faeteniiig the rope to tlie bed-post Hardman said, " I hope that some of the boys will bo about. " The negro, thinking that the man referred to tlie crowd in the street, replied, " I guess there'll be enough when you get out of the window." "Oh, Idon't mean that crowd," said Hardman; "I mean the boys f rom home." " Why," said the boy, '"do you wish to bid theru a last farewell ?" At this Hardman frowned, and murmured some reply in an undertone. During the conversation he had fastened the belt about bis body, and was engaged in getting out of the window, with his back to the street and holding on by the inside of the sill. Ho then allowed himself to drop slowly, still clinging to the window. Then letting go one hand he began acljusting the machine with the other This done, lio began to descend, but before his head had disappeared below the stone coping of the window the wire snapped and he feil, shrugging himself together in a crouching position, to the sidewalk. He cleared the porch' entirely, as well as the steps. His head truck flrst, with a sound whieh, as tlie negro described it, resembled the bursting of a paper bag inflated with air. The man must have been swingins: outward pretty forcibly at the time when the wire snapped, for otherwise he could scarcely have gained snfficient ímpetus to have oarried his body outside of the porch and steps leading to the Broadway entrance. He was probably trying to swing clear of theni when the wire broke. Strangely enough, although the entrance to the Astor House is thronged with business men coming to and f rom the restaurant, no one was directly in the way of the fall. One gentleman, who was walking up Broadway at the time, and was knocked off his feet by a slight touch, turning around, angrily, said, "What do you mean ?" and saw the mutilated and Meeding body at his side. The remains, as they lay upon the sidewalk, were at once surrounded by a strong cordon of pólice, who kept back the tremendous crowd which gathered. Nearly every bone in the unfortunate man's body was broken, so that when the pólice endeavored to carry it to the Twenty-seventh Precinct pólice station they found great difficulty in lifticg it to the stretcher. The left hand was bent in, and the bone of the arm protruded for several inches; the skull was terribly crushed and mangled, and the left shoulder pressed upward toward the head. The sidewalk in front of the hotel was quite discolored with a pool of blood. Singular Attachment. There is a curious case at Bockport of the singular attachment sometimes instituted between man and the lower animáis. A Mr. Hale has been for a long tiinp accustomed to throw some bites of food for some eels in a little brook that runs along back of his lot. Latterly he observad that they seemed to be waiting for his vislt, and, with a little training, they were induced to eat food directly from his hand. Then they learned to play and fondle about his fingers, held in the water, and enjoyed his caresses. More recently the largest one of the four, a lrnge fellow, over two feet long aDd very large nround, allows Mr. H. to talce him entirely out of the water, slide him about freely from hand to hand, apparontly enjoying the novel gymnastics. When Mr. H. goes to the brook he calis theni with a peculiar whistle, and they soon come rushiug down tíie stream. Not long ago he brought them his usual lunch of fish and mackerel, when only the large one carne. The eel waited a tew moments, then turned down the stream and soon carne back, bringing lis tardy family to supper. This shows :hat there is no touch of the human in ihem, for an ordinary biped boarder would have pitched in without waitiag, and cleared the table. - Boston Globe. A pawn-shoi" on the Bowery, Jïe-iy York, exMbit a coin 3,000 yeare,