The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-30 00:00:00


..1..,.
BOSTON.

—.AT FIRE AT
from the New York Herald et the It
even en the Ugh in^ clouds if smoke and
continued to ries from the ruins, in the midst of
numerous working parties were engaged in digging out
safes, experts being employed in opening the same.
Crowds of interested spectators were witnessing the
operations, prominent among them being the owners of
the vaults watching with anxiety the wmss by which
their losses were to be I ..derdmlisiahed. Li some
instances upon opening the safes nothing was found
but the blackened pages of books and the ashes of
notes, certificates of stocks and the ashes of bank
notes. The harbour was still covered with floating
beams, barrels, and boxes from the burned district,
presenting • blackened aspect. There was coal still on
fire on the wharves of Messes. Presoott and Chapin,
W. 11. Prentiss, and Sheppard and Robbins, to the
extent of 20,000 tons, and despite the steady streams
sl water which had been poured upon it since the
previous Saturday night, the flames showed no abate-
moot in intensity. It would be a week or more before
the fire could be extinguished. The value of the coal
thus destroyed would reach, at a rough estimate,
200,000 dollars. "On searching through the ruins, on the
site of 172. Washington-street," says • despatch in
the Nov York Herold, "a small bundle of charred
human bones were discovered. Whose remains they
are it is impossible to find out. Two men are
known to have been burned there. On the morn-
ing when the fire reached that spot there were
over twenty men inside the store, and Deputy.
Chief Quinn stepped in and ordered them all out,
as the walls would fall in a minute or two.
He had hardly reached the opposite ride walk
when the crash of the falling walla was heard, ac-
companied by a blinding cloud of smoke and fine
debris. Then followed the cries of two men from
under the ruins. Every effort was made to get them
out, but the flames drove away the would-be rescuers.
The remains taken out are carefully preserved, and
efforts to secure more will be continued in the hope
that sufficient may be obtained ts solve the problem of
identity by putting the portions together."
The same paper gives the report of a public meeting
called by the Mayor to consider measures of relief. It
was opened by the whole assembly singing the hymn,
"Gail is the refuge of His saints," and closed with the
Doxology and Benediction.

nima.
on

The New York Moab of lib* same date says :--
" To-night the gas is tarried on, and mutt& of the burned
district there is nothing to remind Boston of the ordeal
through which it has passed save the exhibition Of for-
titude, pluck, and energy of these lad few days, which
will live in the memory of the city and country through
all time More than 1,000 labourers have been at work
in the burnt district to-day, clearing away the ruin.,
removing the barricades of granite and debris, and
pulling dawn the dangerous walls. Many vaults
and safes have been opened, and their contents found to be
well preserved. Some, however, have been found to contain
only charred and worthless stuff, and the remit has been the
failure or suspension of the parties owning them. Thebanks
which were within the burnt district are able to make an un-
expectedly good show, and are Ina condition to materially aid
in keeping the wheels of business moving. All thebanes of the
city are manifesting a disposition to pursue a generous
course toward their customers, and while paper will doubt-
less be extended when necessary, discounting will go on as
usual. None of the banks have any fears as to their own
creditors, and all unite in tendering all the facilities in their
power to the business community. Upon the whole, matters
might be a great deal worse In Boston than they are."
The Tribune of the same day has the following:
"The heavy raln last night did much toward extinguishing
the smouldering debris, but there are still many places where
the flames are burning brightly. Detachments of firemen are
stationed at various points, throwing water upon the ruins,
but the flames seem to hold on as bug as anything coin-
bustible remains beneath the overlying mass of granite,
bricks, and mortar. Workmen have been engaged all day is
digging out saes in various parts of the ruins, and in many
Instances they were compelled to dig away from 10 to 15 I
fret of rubbish. Streams of water were directed upon the ,
heated mad while this was being done, and the safes in
most instances had to be cooled off in the same manner
before they could be handled. A large proportion of safes
preserved their contents In good condition. Borne persons
while the tire was raging had taken their sates into the street
and left them there, believing that It would be better to risk
their being crushed by the falling walla than to risk the
ordeal of lire within the furnaces into which the buildings
were soon transformed. In almost every instance where
this was done the safes escaped uninjured some of
them barely had the outside paint scorched, although
half buried by the falling walls. Where the dies were in
vaults on the ground or upper Score their contents were pre
served in excellent condition. I saw books and papers
taken out without evident smell of tire about them. The
Bank of North America, in the centre of the burned district,
saved all of it. valuable books and papers and those of its
depositors in its vaulta. No one is downcast. All are hope-
ful of the future, and say that if given time they will
meet all engagements and go on as before. The lire
seems, as in the case of Chicago, to have almost entirely
consumed ever thing of a combustible nature. Much
of the building material will be available, but this is
about all that can be used of the millions of pro-
perty which the lire swept. The amount of goods re-
moved while the tire was in progress was inconsiderable,
and Is scarcely worth taking into consideration. The city has
been remarkably quiet during allot this trying time. Hordes
of thieves fr,prn New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and some
of the New England cities hurried to Boston with the expecta-
tion of reaping a rich harvest of plunder during the excitement
and confusion ohich it wasted natural to suppose would occur
on on oecimion of this kind. There was some plundering,
but it was done almost entirely by the criminal classes of
this city, and before the arrival of their light-lingered
brethren from abroad. The amount stolen was inconsider-
able, and even much of this was recovered by the police,
and the thieves were arrested."

The Boston Post says :
Looking over what there remains of Boston, one marvels
that the fire did not go on for ever, A view of the house-
tops reveals a forest of mansard roofs, stretching up, angles
and towers and cornices of seasoned wood like so many
hands rapacious to clutch tho flames Supported by win •
drously wrought pillar and capital and frieze of the same
material, they sit at the top of lordly granite blocks like the
OM Man of the sea, to ride them to death. Once grasped,
the fire will not leave the Mansard roof for a deluge, but
revels and riots there, and sends out freih emissaries of des-
truction to its detestable kindred far and wide. An acre of
pinewood goes to make the Mansard roofs of one of our fine
modern blocks, and a fine fire it makes. TMs is no fancy
nor prejudice, and we rejoice to learn that the property
owners on what last week was High street are taking meA
sores to ensure the absence of this abomination in any of
the structures to be erected on their laud."

The New York Herald says
Although Boston bas not been under martial law, the
good effects of martial law have been felt, and strict military
discipline has prevailed in all the arrangements. The mer-
chants who have been Mimed out are locating them-
Belves temporarily In other parte of the city, and proceed-
ing with their business and the property owners only
await the laying out of the contemplated new streets
over the burned districts to commence the work of
rebuilding. The condemned Mansard root receives
no mercy from the preen, and it la probable that the tasteful
finish will be religiously discarded in all Boston buildings
for the future The insurance offices appear to be likely
to weather the storm gal/aptly. Only two suspensions In
this city are yet announced, and but few more failures are
anticipated. The losses of the New York companies are not
heavy considering the amount of property destroyed, being
only live millions In all. The foreign companies lose some-
what heavily, but they ale rich and substantial, and can afford
to stand the lons. A proposal to increase the insurance rate
Ma been made aa • means of relief to the companies, but
this would be a step of doubtful expediency, and we do not
believe It will be taken. Altogether, the severity of the
shock of the great Boston conflagration may be said to have
passed away, and the people are beginning to console them-
selves that the solid wealth and prosperity of the country Dm
enabled them to meet it so well."

A despatch to the New York World, dated November
12, says
After eight hours of the most Intense excitement and
anxiety pervading all classes of people, complete confidence
and quiet seems at last to have bees restored. The reaction
from the strain of mind and body endured by the loss of
sleep on Sunday night, and the panic which continued dur-
ing Sunday foienoon, not in last evening ; but the general
belief that the city was full of thieves and ruffians, who
would, soon after night-fall, begin their work of arson
and plunder, led to the prevalence of a feeling of
strange, indefinable fear, which was universal through-
out the city. Two-thirds of the entire police force
of the city were on duty, aided by the military companies,
who had entire charge of the burnt district. Never was
such vigilance shown in guarding the precincts of the c''
and although the fears of nervous persons were pa'
realised, and several attempts at incendiarism were
and the criminals caught, the night passed away
the occurrence of any systematic or widespread lawlessness.
None of the men buried under the falling buildings have
yet been rescued. At least seven firemen are believed to
have thus perished."

Var;
;:d
detected

tthout

The Special Correspondent of the New York World
give the following account of the extent of the fire:—
Beginning, as one naturally does, from where the fire
stopp, d, and skirting the scene of it, Its nearly half • mile
to the river. The way lies through India-street, and a few
of the old warehouses devoted to the trade from which the
street took its name, and which was once the mainstay of
the commerce of Boston, are standing to the left of it. But
foe the most part the piles of fresh grey granite outside show
what there was across the way—newer repositories of
newer enterprises. The lire did not burn to the water
edge on this line, but the track slants sharply off to the
southwards lust grazing the first three or four wharves and
taking in the other.. On all these wharves were stored
coal nobody knows how much—" 150,000 tons "me the loose
Bcstonlan estimate. The soot Is burning yet. and will burn
with the sullen persistency of anthracite for days and days
to come till it be consumed. In the cellars o the burnt
warehouses, too, were stored supplies of coal—in many of
them the stove of the whole winter—and these will burn
themselves away. But nothing less than a hurricane
can make them a source of danger. At what was the
station of the Boston, liartford and Erie the fire leaves
the shore again, having consumed four wharves. Mid-
way from her. to Washington-street at the corner
of Summer and Kingston-street, is its starting-point.
Here, as almost everywhere else, the track of the tire 11
not quite that of the street, but it has burnt through the
!ignores. Bair the buildings in the bordering egaarea—al-
though, in strictures of speech, there are no squares in the
burnt district—are taken and the other half left. Washing-
ton atreet la the Bostonian street of shops, and It Is her.
alone that the fire has touched the retail tradesmen It Is
only for a square and &half and on one side that Washington
street Is burned, and here was the only newsparer office
destroyed. For this short distance only can one walk
along the edge of the lire by a made road. From here the
line en-enters just round the corner of the Old South
Church, and does not reappear along • street until it arrives
at the new Yost office, at which the fire stopped. It was my
fortune to see the ruins of Chicago, as now I see these ruins
of so much of Baotou. And Boston has the look of being the
more utter ruin of the two. We begin Where the fire stopped
at the new Bost.ottice, and looking southward one sees
nothing but ruin as far as sight reaches through the cloud
of smoke, lit on its edges, but not dispelled, by this No-
vember sun. At Chicago there was her. and there • frag-
ment—only once or twice an Intelligible skeleton from
which the body might be reconstructed. For the rest It
was utter desolation. That mighty gale which had
whirled Chicago from off the face of the earth, had
whirled with it over that flat lake of land what had gone to
build Chicago. The whole place had been swept by what, in
the metaphor which repetition has made a trivial common-
place, we may well call a "bosom of destruction," The
cellars had been filled up to the level of the streets, but what
above that level over those ample squares the Are had not
abolished the gale had swept away. There was no place, as
remember, where a coach could not have been driven along
the streets so lined with desolation. But the solider buildings
or Burnt Boston, reared on crooked streets, over sharp ridges
and hollows, and driven by seemly any wind save what the
tremendous suction of the conflagration made, lie where
they fell. There Is no place where one would care to ride,
much less drive, the surest-footed horse, and in fact there
was nee% horse to be seen fairly within the burnt tract all
day yesterday. Underfoot was miscellaneous chaos—heaps
and hills of it. For whole squares it was impossible to dis-
tinguish the streets from what they had enclosed. In the
prospect, and to the eye, as I have said, the ruin might have
stretched the four miles of the desolation of Chicago in-
stead of the reach of a half a mile which It actually measures.
And everywhere, grouped thickly and disorderly together,
loomed through the mist which baffled the eye on every
hand fragnionie, integral parts, whole skeletons of what
formed last Saturday the most solid and "substantial'
congeries of buildings on this continent. Theee emptiest.,
the emptineee end reeks more desolate the desolation of this
vast void. It Is wonderful to ass, and in the promos of It
Owe te no elite' phrase that emu pa Bias that which the