AUTOMOBILE'S WILD DASH |
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The New York Times
April 21, 1900
Nurses and Children Narrowly Escape Serious Injury.
Two nurses and four children, of whom none was over four years of age, narrowly escaped injury yesterday afternoon by a steam automobile at Riverside Drive and West Ninety-first Street. The children were Vera and Herbert Forster, son and daughter of William Forster, President of the Kress Brewing Company, and living at 626 West End Avenue, and Margaret and Albert Strauss, children of Albert Strauss of 311 West Ninetieth Street.
Though none of the persons was injured bodily all were prostrated by shock and required the attention of physicians. Baby Strauss had the narrowest escape, being seated in a carriage, which was jammed up against the wall along the Drive next the river's edge after the two front wheels had been wrenched off. The nurses, Ellen White, employed by Mr. Forster, and Jane Wilton, employed by Mr. Strauss, were both thrown into hysterics by the fright which they received.
The nurses were dearer on a bench and the children running about on the narrow strip of sod next to the bicycle path, when down Riverside Drive came a steam automobile, in which were seated Morris B. Thair of 124 Lexington Avenue, an employe of an automobile company, and James M. Stauer, a merchant of Bloomsburg, Penn., who is staying at the Broadway Central Hotel. Stauer was operating the vehicle and was running it so fast, the police say, that it could be seen to swerve from side to side. When it was within a short distance of the little party the vehicle suddenly swerved to the right and dashed across the trotting path, over the bicycle path, and right into the centre of the group gathered about the bench. The wheels struck the river wall with a crash and threw both of the occupants to the ground.
The screams of the nurses and children attracted the attention of Mr. Forster, who lives near by. Mr. Forster caused the arrest of Thair and Stauer. The men were taken to the West One Hundredth Street Station, where they were bailed out by Dr. Cyrus Edson of 56 West Fiftieth Street. They will be arraigned in the West Aide Court this morning on the charge of driving an automobile in a reckless manner.