BURNED TO DEATH ON HORSE BACK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 64, 15 March 1880, Page 4

BURNED TO DEATH ON HORSE BACK.

Adam Roche, a fifteen-year-old son of Frederick Roche, a blacksmith at the Continental shaft in Scranton city, was burned to death on the afternoon of December 14, on the road between Scranton and Taylorville. He was employed, around the blacksmith's shop as an assistant. Some of the live stock at the mines became sick, and young Roche was sent to Taylorville to pro- i cure some vitriol. He w&nt on horseback. He purchased a bottle containing a pint, and started back, bringing two mules along. Half way between Taylorville and the mine, the cork came out of the bottle, and the jolting caused the vitrol to spatter into his coat pocket. Then it slowly worked through his pantaloons, and went streaming along his limbs. The first touch of the vitrol caused the lad to shout with pain, and thelast of the contents of the bottle were spilled into his clothing. His cries of agony spurred the horse into a run, and the suffering boy endeavored to throw the bottle from his pocket. This action burned his hands severely, and be clasped them to his face, which added greatly to his agony. He lost his control of the horse, and just at the foot of a steep declivity in the road, he was hurled violently into a ditch, where he lay writhing in anguish. He recovered sufficiently to tie the mules to a tree. The horse went back to the mines, and the boy's father and several others went out to find the lad. When he was discovered he was dead. The oil had eaten into his limbs, and he presented a fearful spectacle. His hands were badly blistered, his cheeks burned, and the vitriol hadsunk to the'bones of his leg's. The boy had torn away nearly all of his clothing except what had been saturated with oil. A large wound in his head showed that he had been thrown forward from the hoase. He had crawled' to a tree on the hillside, and his appearance showed that he had suffered the greatest agony. — New York Sun.