The Miracle of the Giant Powder Blast

It would make any man think and apologize to himself with a shudder, to hear Smith, the man who was blown up in the giant powder explosion of Thursday, tell the impressions his aerial voyage made upon him. Now that he expects to recover he seems to enjoy the affair hugely. He says he went up into the air head first, and on reaching the limit of his flight turned a couple of summersaults and then started back toward terra firma. On the downward voyage he had a splendid view of the surrounding country, but after a while it occurred to him that he might alight heavily and injure the railroad company's property by bursting a hole in the level track. He says he wondered on the way down whether the company would dock him for the time he was gone, and would have given a dollar and a half to have had the old woman around somewhere to see him spread himself. He says that on the way up he passed the time of day with sundry pieces of Chinaman coming down, and that the first thing he saw on landing on the flat of his back was the Chinaman's intestines hanging on a branch of a tree just above him. Smith says that the upward tendency of giant powder is something wonderful, and that if anyone doubts the existence of the physical quality called spontaneity he should touch off a stick or so of this explosive and be convinced. Our reporter at Puyallup says that the giant powder explosion in the gravel pit, five miles away, shook up the houses until the dishes rattled. The trains 15 miles away plainly heard the explosion, and several people in Tacoma also assert that they heard it. The top of a flat car which was on the siding running to the pit was blown clear away, and the roadbed was badly torn up.