Press enter after choosing selection

Locked In A Sulphur Room

Locked In A Sulphur Room image
Parent Issue
Day
8
Month
April
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

From the London Mail: Edgar Alien Poe's description of the sufferings of a person under the effects of slow suffocation has been verified to some extent by an incident which has jnst been inquired into at ihe Leeds City coroner's court. A blanket stover, named Pickard, eraployed by a local firm of manufacturera, had himself ocked into a sulphur-room, and lighted the stoves in the belief that he ;ould leave by another door, which was usually open. No sooner had he done o than he remembered that this door had been Iocked on the outside earlier In the day by his own order. The man who had shut him in was deaf, and had gone away disregarding his knocks and cries; and he was thereupon overeóme by panic. He could easily have .xtinguished the sulphur stoves, and ■siight have remained in the room without danger till relieved, but such was the state of his mind that instead of doing so he still spent his time In endeavoring to attract attention. The sulphur fumes soon filled the place, but even then it did not occur to him that he could put out the stoves by means of one of the blankets in the room. He next tricd to reaeh an apertura above the door by meana of a rope and a plank, bnt it was only a small one. about four inches or six inches in width, and was covered on the outside by a strip of wood. Then he became quiv? exhaustert, and feil against one of tLe doors. which had resisted his utmost strength. There was air enough coming in beneath the sill to keep him alive and cons-.'.ious; and in that plight, expecting cfyath ana clinging to life, he lay for fcur hours. In the end his whereabouts was diseovered by his -son and a watchman. Pickard could see the flicker of the watchman's lamp uder the oor, and knocking with the ïittle stringth maining to Mm, was reloased. He died, however, eleven days later as the result of sulphur poisoning. Jt is related that after being released from his terrible imprisonmeut In remembered he had not lighted the stoves in the other bleaching-houses, and actually went into each oí them and com plf.ted his day's

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat