FARE LIFE OF CAR
ENDED BY SUICIDE.
RUNS AWAY AND DASHES IT-
SELF AGAINST POLE.
Deliberately Leaves Barn and Makes
Wild Run Down Ninth Street
Until It Jumps Track at
Wyandotte Street.
Roanoke car No. 604 committed suicide last night at 7:30 o'clock by running down Ninth from Washington street and dashing itself against the trolley pole at the southeast corner of Ninth and Wyandotte streets. So carefully was the act committed that no one was hurt and the tracks were left clear, but the car was smashed to kindling.
No. 604 returned from a hard day's work and was put into the car barn at Ninth and Wyandotte streets by Motorman Floyd Dyer, 809 West Twenty-first street. It was raining and there was a despondency in the air, but the car manifested no signs of the deep design it was nursing within its breast.
INTENT ON SUICIDE
Fifteen minutes later, when none of the street car men was looking, it poked its nose out of the barn and started, gathering speed as it progressed. A girl clerking at a laundry agency across the street from the barn saw it start.
"There was no one on or near the car," she said. "It came out deliberately like a living thing, and ran away before anyone had time to stop it."
"There was no one on or near the car," she said. "It came out deliberately like a living thing, and ran away before anyone had time to stop it."
Two street car men saw the runaway after it had gone half a block and ran after it. Fortunately there were no cars on the track in front and the rain had driven pedestrians from the streets.
Detective Andy O'Hare, who was waiting for a car at Ninth and Wyandotte streets, saw the car bearing down upon him. The trolley was threshing wildly although it had been on the wire when 604 left the barn.
DASHES ITSELF TO PIECES.
Grinding the speed limit beneath its wheels, the suicide leaped the track at Wyandotte steret, instead of making the turn, and precipitated itself sideways against the granitoid walk at the west side of the Boston Drug Company, on the southeast corner.
It was brought to a stop by an iron trolley pole, and the bed of the car left the trucks and fell sideways on the walk, completely blocking passage. Only two windows in the drug store were damaged. Every window in the car ws broken, the front end was ripped open and a few solid planks were left.
The wreck was entirely clear of the tracks and traffic was not delayed. Dyer, the motorman, is positive that he set the brake before leaving the car.
"Clear case of suicide, probably due to despondency brought on by the whether," was the verdict of the wreckers who cleared the debris away.
