The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 20, 1898, Page 1

The "VOLUME LXXXIV.—NO. 50. SAN FRANCISCO, WEDNESDAY, JULY 20. 1898. SEVEN DEAD IN THE STUPENDOUS MELROSE TRAGEDY Five Gallant Officers Lay Down| Their Lives in the Heroic Prosecution of Duty. KILLED. Deputy Sheriffs Charles White and J. J. Lerri of Oakiand, D. C. Cameron g | of Alverado, George C. Woodsum | What was left of their timbers was of Berkeley, Consiable Gus Koch of | consumed by the whirlwind Melrose, Mrs. Sadie Hill of San Fran-| fame that burst forth “with cisco and Dong Ng Chang. T iy WOUNDED. [ et s puty Sheriffs Edward White and ge Gibblin of Mel- | of Oakland, Perry | windows were blown in and the PRICE FIVE CENTS. BLOWN INTO ATOMS BY A FIENDISH MONGOLIAN yards from the magazine and was damaged almost beyond repair. The plaster lay in chalky heaps |on the floor and the walls were skeletons with ribs of lath. A |throng of little children stood around the building yesterday |and gazed upon the wreck with | tearful eyes. Camp Barrett, distant 250 vards, was convulsed with the shock. Sentries were thrown off their feet and tents were broken down with a shower of bricks, splinters and bits of corrugated iron sheeting. But fortune fa- |hung over the splintered walls. | vored the village of white tents, Small dwellings were razed and |for no one was hurt. Oriental fatalism is responsible of |indirectly for the destruction the | wrought upon property and for | the wanton killing of six persons Within a radius of 200 yards|and the suicide of the criminal. | As the lighting of a match to a !peased save by a blood offering, |and Chang, after hacking his vic- | tim with a hatchet, shot him in |the abdomen with a bullet from a | bulldog pistol. | The tragedy took place outside | |the door of Chang’s cabin, about |twenty yards from the magazine. Leaving his victim writhing on |the ground, the murderer took matches and his pistol with him land in the heat of his madness re- solved that he would not- allow himself to fall into the hands of the law officers. The details of the melancholy affair show that his first intention was to escape during the night, but finding himself so closely guarded as to make that design impossible of accomplishment, he made up his mind to die. Like all other fatalists, he re- flected that a man can die but be made fatherless.- It was de- creed, so he reasoned, that the officers of the law should die with him, and when he had lured them closer to the ambushed demon he turned the monster loose and tore them and himself into atoms. There can be no question that the officers were over-confident and imprudent. Had -they not kept so close a , guard, had they gone out of sight and allowed the murderer to have escaped from the building and from the grounds there would have been no mourning hearts in Alameda County to-day. But the strangest chapter in the story is that when Chang asked for a drink of water in the night Charles White, one of his victims, would not listen to the proposition to . drug the water with morphine. His misplaced UNPARALLELED ACT OF A REVENGEFUL CHINESE DEMON After Murdering a Countryman He Hid in a Magazine and Blew It Up to Avoid Capture ters' Home, who was visiting a friend at Sather. The murderer of course was | a victim of his own act cnd with the | exception of his queue not a particle of | his remains has been found. All of M@nday night the deputy sher- iffs in charge of Al White, who was | succeeded at 2 o’clock this morning by | his brother Charley, kept watch around | the powder house in which Chang had barricaded himself with cases of powder. At intervals one of the Chi- roar, shaking! an acre of to the sky,| on its fiery wings ils of seven human beings rashing into splinters the an hamlet of fair et suburl , fathers and mothers, broth- nd sisters, this most desper- deed of a hundred years, was work of a Chinese murderer, 10,” seeing the noose dangling | his eyes for a most cruel e, took refuge in a powder 1e and hurled himself and t vould-be captors before into eter- 1 San F: isco, more than eleven miles away, with six miles | to be trav rsed, the re- | heard and the sharp| d tremor of the earth | by thousands of persons | ldenly eut a| In San Jose, more | miles distant, the| that the | > general thni‘E 1 earthquake. { ick magazine in 1 the murderer held the offi- | f the y for a whole 1ed 5000 pounds of Dong Ng Chang | of ployed for many | the Western Fuse and | I ve Company, and his par- | tic duty had been to take care of the building which held locked | ts thin brick walls the fet- | —— He I where he was going when he fled to it. He knew that once under its roof he could hold an my at.bay. Having resolved not to be captured alive, he was y for the inevitable and did not shrink from his hellish task falter when the time for ac- tion arrived. I v house within a radius of 100 vyards was shattered as|sweet roses bloomed. shot and shell. | tered power of "a volcano. a yard in diameter. many pretty cottage ready nor shone upon though with glass driven into the plaster like {hail. Chimneys fell to pieces and rolled noisily down the pitch roofs; plastering fell in sections There were homes |around Melrose on Monday with ‘p]easzmt garden patches odorous [ with flowers, but Tuesday’s sun heaps of broken {wood and black ashes where once The Melrose public school. the gle roofs, broken and bent,ipride of the village, stood 100 THE SPOT ON WHICH THE POWDER HOUSE WASLOCATED. | train of powder, so was the cause THE CALL FIRST WITH THE NEWS, When the shock of the explosion which startled the people of San Francisco yesterday morning reached The Call office the con- clusion wes at once arrived at that the Chinese murderer near Fruitvale had carried out his threat, and within ten minutes a re- porter was on his way to the scene, and before 7 o-clock printers were setting the type on the story which was first presented to the people of this city through The Call extra issued at 7:30—just two hours after the explosion. The promptness with which this news was handled and the rapidity with which it was gethered and placed before the read- ing public is only possible in those newspaper offices which are thoroughly up to date in all respects, and for this reason The Call | was the only paper which was able to give the news yesterday morning. N8B E-EEB-BE-N-5 I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—l—:' of the bloody deed in its appar- |ent triviality. The match was a L | 25-cent lottery ticket, the train of ® powder was the evil passion and | blind rage of one who had been |bred in the hopeless fatalism of | the Orient. .,f Chang had purchased the tic- & ket from Hong Hi Sing, a butch- " |er doing business in the neigh- | 'borhood. He conceived the idea | that the ticket had won $100 in M| the drawing, and he demanded B the money. Sing assured him @ that the ticket had not drawn a greed, refused to believe him. His rage grew until it overpow- ered him, and would not be ap- | prize, but Chang, whose suspi- | cions had been stimulated by| |once. He knew that if he were | captured he would be hanged or {imprisoned for life, either of | which punishment he was deter- | mined not to undergo. As the | night grew apace, with the hope of escape dwindling away before the increased vigilance of his | guards, he saw that he was fated. | Fated for what? To keep his word that if an attempt should be made {to capture him he would blow up ‘the magazine. He was there and | he could not get out. It was | evident that his course was run. | Beyond this assumed fact his nar- | row mind could not go. There was no room in his breast for the innocent who would suffer for his act, the women who would be widowed, the children 'who would idea of humanity cost him and his brave companions their lives. S FATAL NIGHT WATCH. With the Dawn the Officers Became Imprudent and Lost Their Lives. When Alameda County was rudely awakened shortly after 5 o'clock yes- terday morning by a tremendous ex- plosion every one acquainted with the facts of last Monday night's murder knew that the assassin must have car- tied out his threat and blown up the powder house in which he was taking refuge frem the officers of the law. No one, however, was prepared for the tragic news that quickly succeeded the report of the exrlosion. Rather than submit to arrest Gung Chang fired 5000 pounds of black powder, in- stantly killing Deputy Sheriff Charles ‘White, Constable Gus Koch, Deputy Sheriff George C. Woodsum of Berke- ley, ‘Deputy Sheriff D. C. Cameron of Alvarado, Deputy Sheriff J. J. Lerri and an aged lady, Mrs. Sadie Hill, of San Francisco Kings Daugh- | zine to ask if'Chang would surrender, nese employes was sent to the maga- and each time the answer was the same he would blow up the magazine be- | fore submitting to arrest. About midnight the opportunity came | to have taken the prisoner without | bloodshed, but through the humanity | of Charley White the opportunity was lost. The murderer was thirsty. He asked that a drink be sent him. A | Chinaman was detailed to carry him a cup of water. One of the deputles, Will Moffitt, suggested that a teaspoon- ful of morphine in the water would render it perfectly safe for the deputies to follow in a few minutes and carry out their prisoner. Deputy White dep- recated this method of making the ar- rest and forbade the use of drugs. The deputies lodged in the superin- tendent’s office throughout the dark hours about twenty yards from the magazine. At daybreak this morning the murderer opened the door and shouted that he would submit to arrest. “All right, Chang,” said Charley White, “if you come out we will not hurt you.” The Chinaman replied “all proached the magazine with White in the lead. When about ten fet from the door the Chinaman ran back into the magazine, slamnted the door and the next instant the explosion occurred. ‘Whether the murderer shot a pistol into the powder, whether he struck a match and exploded it, or whether he lit a fuse of which there was plenty around, before telling the officers he would sur- render, calculating on the explosion Jjust about the time they would reach him, must ever remain a mystery. The truth could only be known to the mur- derer, Charley White, Constable Koch or Deputy Lerri, who were the closest to the magazine door, and their lips are forever sealed. Immediately after the explosion Deputy Sheriff Ed White and Fred Sherrott looked around for their com- panions. They found none. With the exception of Will Moffatt the half dozen | men who had guarded the magazine all night had disappeared. Some time later human remains were found many hun- dreds of yards from the place where the magazine had stood. One of the bodies, nearly - intact, was recognized as that of Constable Koch, another one but a little disfigured was that of D. C. Cameron. Of the other three, Char- ley White, J. J. Lerri and George C. ‘Woodsum, the remains are scant and so disfigured that positive identifica- tion is impossible. The widows of two of them belleve that they can re- cognize the'remains of their husbinds by small bits of clothing, but every- thing is so charred and torn that the clothing is but a slight clew. Mrs. Sadie Hill was asleep at the time of the explosion in a house about two hundred feet from the magazine, The house was demolished and two hours later her lifeless body was dis- covered in the ruins. Deputy Sheriffs Ed White and Fred Sherrott had marvelous escapes. They were following the deputies who were going to make the arrest and were about seventy feet behind them when the magazine was fired. They were lift- ed off their feet and carried a long dls- tance, their faces were somewhat dis- figured by flying debris, and their clothes were badly torn. Sherrott has sustained internal injuries. Ed White tells the following story: “Last night my brother Al, Gus Koch, H. S. Smith, J. J. Lerri, my father and myself went out to the magazine and remained until midnight; then my brother Charles, Cameron and Wood- sum also came out and we were later joined by Fred Sherrott. After mid- night Smith and my father went home, but all the rest remained. About half- past 4 this morning we went into the residence of Constable Stephenson, which was across the street, to get breakfast. After breakfast we returned to the magazine and all but Sherrott and I went inside the fence near the magazine. Chang saw Charley and spoke to him. Charley asked him if he were hungry, and he said he was. He said also that he would not come out of the magazine for a couple of days, and when my brother suggested that it would be a good idea to come out right away the Chinaman replied, “All right, I'll come out right away.’ “As soon as we heard this we ran around to the gate to get inside the yard, and while doing so the explosion took place. We were knocked to the ground after being carried some dis- tance, and Sherrott was injured in the groin. When I got up everything around me was in flames. Cameron and Koch’s remains were in th- fuse- house, .and all that I could find of my brother Charles was a piece of the coat he wore. ‘Last night we ordered all the people in the neighborhood to move away on account of the murderer’s threat to blow up the magazine, and most of them did so.” Fred Sherrott of West Oakland, who is severely injured intérnally by the force with which he was blown over the ground, gives the following account of the tragedy: “I went out last night with Charlie White, as we were great friends and I frequently went with him in the discharge of his duties. With the other deputy sheriff we kept as close to the powder house as we thought ad- visable. Occasionally one of us would go toward the door and assure the Chi- nese that we would not hurt him if he came out. The fellow would invaria- bly reply that he would blow up the place if we attempted to take him. Late last night he repeated his threat so often that the people around there believed he would do it, and many of them moved out of their homes. Had they not done so they would now be dead, for their homes are scattered over many acres. “‘Before midnight the Chinese shouted to one of his countrymen who was near us for a drink of water. 1 did not ap- prove of his being given anything, but Charley White permitted’'a Chinese to carry him a glass of water. “Billy Moffatt, who was also out there, there right,” and walked a few steps outside the door. White'and some others ap- proposed that the water be doped as the