A Fatal Ride on the Grant Street Line

Jack Collins, a nurse at the poor farm, was killed at 11:45 o'clock last night by car No. 2 of the Grant street electric line, at a point about 100 rods south of the White house. The killing was purely accidental and due to the fact that Collins was drunk. Between 9 and 10 o'clock, Collins came into the Palace saloon drunk as a lord, and informed Charles Spink, who lives in Georgetown, that he knew him and wanted him to take a drink. Spink took a cigar and Collins thus spent his last cents. He then asked Spink for 5 cents to get a bed, but Spink would not let him have it. Finally, Collins concluded to go home on the 10 o'clock car. He did not have his fare, so Spink paid it. They got off at the Georgetown Junction, but Collins was drunkenly stubborn and would not take the branch car home. Spink then left him. Car No. 2, Motorman Phil Morris and Conductor D. L. Ghorley, was entering Georgetown at about ten miles an hour with four passengers. When almost in front of H. S. Crocker's house, a drunken man reeled on the track fifteen feet ahead of the car. Motorman Morris yelled, put on the brakes and reversed the current, but the fifteen feet separating the car and the man were passed over in a moment and the crash came. The dasher struck the man's head and he went to the ground. The car bumped along ten feet more and came to a standstill. The bleeding form of good-hearted, drunken Jack Collins was taken from underneath the front trucks. He gasped twice, a quiver ran through his body, and all was over.