LIKE THE VALLEY OF DEATH.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4687, 15 January 1884, Page 2

LIKE THE VALLEY OF DEATH.

In the gas works at Twenty-third and Filbert streets, Philadelphia, one gets an idea of the valley of death. Here is the deadly cross fire like that through which the nonchalant Cardigan galloped. Two double rows of retorts, that must be heated for forty eight hours before they have the proper temperature for gas-making, stretch clear across the building. In this lane of fire men work. " When I come out of there, after twenty-eight minutes' work on my four retorts," said one to the reporter, "I can put my hand on top of my head and feel the blood leaping. I can roll up my sleeves and see it bounding in my veins. For seven or eight minutes after that, when I press my hand on my heart as hard as I can, it seems as if the heart would jump through it. I am not a drinking man, and I am a strong one. To those who have that fire without and that wildfire within, as many of them have, not being able to do their work without stimulants, I can imagine what it must be. I have on rare occasions, and long ago—for I have been here fourteen years—taken a glass of whisky before going on. Upon my life, sir, I could feel the blood boiling within me. That ice water there, of which every man drinks from ten to fifteen quarts a day, positively tastes warm until you get two or three cups of it down. That, with oatmeal in it, is the best thing a man can drink." "How long do men last at the business?"

" Some only three or four years, others five or six, a few much longer."—Philadelphia Press.