Arlie Francis, the 8 year old boy whose two legs were cut off under the wheels of the engine of an Iron Mountain train near Cornwall, Missouri,

Tuesday, and who died at St. John's Hospital the following day, was a lad cast in the mold from which martyrs were made in the early ages.

Although suffering intense agony from his from his injuries, and conscious of the fact that death's icy arms were enfolding him in the awful embrace which is the terror of childhood, the brace little fellow bore the pain with the stoicism of a Sioux Indian, and bore up under his terrible affliction with a fortitude that won him the astonished admiration  of all who witnessed it.  The train crew and hospital surgeons, who had witnessed many similar tragedies of the rail, in which scores of grown uppersons figured, marveled at the self control exhibited by the cruelly mutilated child.

L. M. Taylor of No.  1637 South Broadway, the engineer of the train which ran over Arlie, and his fireman called at the Coroner's office yesterday to testify at the inquest.  Mr. Taylor said:

"In all my experience as a railroad man I have never seen a person show such 'sand' as this poor boy after we picked him up, with his feet cut off.

His little brother was with him, and it was his cries, after he saw the  engine pass over his brother's legs, that attracted our attention to the injured boy.  

He never  lost consciousness and when I picked him up in my arms he turned to his brother, who was still crying, and said: "Shut up crying, Bob.

What's the matter:  You're not hurt, are you?  I'm all right."

"Then he looked down at his legs and when he saw he had not feet, he gave a gulp, and said: "Do you think I'll die:"   That was all.  Not a tear nor a groan nor a sob.  We carried him into the caboose and took him to Fredericktown, and all the way in he never whimpered.  When the doctor put him on the table to operate on him, he found, tightly clenched between his teeth, a railroad car seal, a small round piece of tin, in which the poor boy had bitten holes with his teeth in the effort to repress a cry of agony when the jolting of the train made the pain more intense.  Where he got the car seal from is a mystery.  He must have had it in his hand when he was run over.

"The boy was not attempting to cross the track when he was injured.  He and his brother were walking alongside the track, on their way to school, when he fell into a cattle guard opposite where our engine was sidetracked awaiting for a passenger train to pass us.  He fell in such a position that his legs fell across the rails.  Before anybody noticed his danger, we received the signal to go ahead, and I started up the engine.  The cries of  his brother, who was attempting to extricate him from the cattle guard, attracted the attention of my fireman, who notified me, and I stopped the train."

A verdict of accidental death was returned by Deputy Corner Fitzsimmons.

The St. Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, Friday, December 14, 1900, Image 7

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