The Abandoned Animal at Black River
A freight train hit two horses on a trestle, leaving one to suffer for hours while officials argued over the timing of the accident instead of offering mercy.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The 2 a.m. freight train to Seattle on the Northern Pacific yesterday ran into two horses on a trestle six miles from O'Brien's, near the Black river junction. By afternoon, one horse lay dead and mangled, while the other lay in a ditch, groaning pitifully. Two men attempted to help the suffering animal, but no one could be found authorized to put it out of its misery. When a passer-by asked the section foreman, Sullivan, to intervene, he shouted that the man was a liar and that the accident had just occurred, despite the fact that blood on the trestle had been dry for hours and local residents confirmed it happened during the night.
“Sullivan, the foreman, roared out that he was a liar, and that it only occurred half an hour ago, though the blood upon the trestle had been dry for hours.”
While contemporary Seattle has strict animal welfare laws and rapid response for incidents involving animals or infrastructure, this account captures a stark, unfeeling attitude toward suffering that underscores the lack of civic infrastructure for compassion in the late 19th century.
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