The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-01-19

ferers within the wreck, now forever released
from the pains of earth.
A citizen, who risked his own life in an at
tempt to save the operatives from the burning
pile, worked his way into an inner apartment,
and, looking through hole, saw two men and
woman walking TO and fro, apparently entire
ly unhurt. He reached through and took them
by the hand, and proceeded with vigorous
blows to make a hofe In the partition. A mo-
ment too soon the flames sprang up where he
stood. The food of water poured in upon it
blinded him, and he rushed from the place,
warned by the engineer, and narrowly escaping
with his life.
SCENES AT THE CITY HALL.
The City Hall had been made hospital for
the reception of those taken out of the ruins,
whether dead or dying and such as were not
recognised by their own friends, and carried
home, were taken thither. The hospitals at
Scutari and Solferino presented no more sick
ening or ghastly spectacles than were here dis
played. Litters, having on them corpses, or
horrid wrecks of humanity in which the spark
OF life still dwelt, were constantly passing
through the streets. In the lower room of the
hall lay the dead bodies, burned, blackened,
distorted. The larger room above was APP
pointed to the wounded, and there the air was
heavy with the hospital odor familiar to most
persons. There were lamentations of friends,
groans of the injured, whispered consultations,
crowd striving for admission at the door.
As we entered, says a reporter, young girl
died with groan, and Ia moment was car
ried below, to be added to the CHASTITY row
there lying; another was just expiring, while
hardly one would probably survive. Sixty-one
physicians were in attendance; twenty-five
from Lowell, eight or ten from Manchester,
others from Bradford, Haverhill, Derry, Me-
thuen, &c. The view at the hall is but one in
stance of the many scenes of suffering and
death. At the clearinghouse and other
homes of the operatives, the sad spectacle was
repeated.
At two o'clock Wednesday morning, twenty
seven dead bodies had been removed, as they
died, to the lower room Among these were
the old and the young-nearly all presenting
a spectacle of CHASTITY wounds and bruises, and
showing signs of painful death. A few only
of the faces were calm and placid. In the
larger room, some of the sufferers, arranged on
couches all around, were grooming in agony,
some were wild with delrium in the last mo-
ment others quietly breathed their last, or bore
the pains of death in silence. Everywhere was
blood, bruises, and broken limbs. Nearly
every one of the wounded here had leg or an
arm broken. To one unacquainted with the
scenes of the dead-bouse or the hospital the
spectacle was loathsome, sickening, horrible.
On the first dawn of morning, and by the
arrival of the earliest trains, people again came
hocking in from greater distance, mothers
and fathers to inquire for a daughter friend
for friend, and every chance of hope was ca
gerly seized upon, until the inquirers found
those they sought in the list of the dead, or
failed to find them at ALL AS / WRITE says
reporter, the walls and shrieks of those who
al, r. l.. IL II.
hall. Women faint in the corridors, and are
borne away. The anguish of those who do
not find their loved ones far exceeds that of
the few who find only their unsightly remains.
INCIDENTS, ETC.
Some Of the instances of escape are almost
miraculous. Three sisters, named Hancock,
employed in the same room, were precipitated
four stories into a vacant spot whence they
were rescued uninjured two hours subsequently,.
Near them, only separated by single beam,
was a man hemmed in by the fallen timbers.
This man herOicaily went to work with his
jackknite, and in about two hours cut the beam
in two and was saved. In one case, two boys,
brothers, fell three stories, and received very
little injury. A little girl was found crushed
beneath a ponderous block of iron weighing
over a thousand pounds. She was supposed to
be dead, but the effort was made to save her
body from the flames. Four men labored in
vain to move the heavy mass, whom finally a
stalwart man caught hold of it, and with mar
vellous power, aided by the excitement of the
moment, succeeded in loosening it. The girl
was taken out alive the heavy iron having
met some more powerful obstruction than hen
frail body. Another girl was taken from the
ruins IN perfectly nude state, yet, strange tc
| say, with hardly scratch on her person. A
! girl who had her hand caught in the ruins
saved herself by tearing out two fingers. One
man in the card-room, hearing the crash, lump.
! ed into the wastebox and pulled the lid down.
The box was not crushed, and he was got out
uninj walking of as soon as the I'D was
raised The body of a woman was got out, and
her husband, supposing her to be dead, carried
| her home sorrowing, in his arms. While friend.
were gathering around mourning her DEATH she
suddenly revived, and throwing mp her arms
cried out " I'm safe I'm safe !"
ESTIMATES OF THE NUMBER KILLED.
There were, as nearly as can be ascertained
some 500 persons in the building at the time O
| the catastrophe. Not far from one hundred
dead and wounded, were taken to the CITY Hall
the other dead and wounded taken out were re
moved to private dwellings about town. Their,
were many who extricated themselves from tn,
ruins, and, not being severely injured, have dis
| posed of themselves according to their owl
choice. In the excited and unsettled condition
| OF the town, 1t has been impossible TO make NJ
| an absolutely correct statement of the number
of victims, but Mayor Saunders employed hi
police, on Wednesday, in canvassing the city
and gives as a result of his labors 10 dead OF
missing, (which is the same thing,) and l6;
wounded, some of whom will die, but the larges
number survive. These figures are probabl,
as nearly accurate as any now can be- but ar
generally believed to be but too lamentably be
| low the mark.
The figures given by Mayor Saunders for thu
loss by the accident (l15) are too low. Nor
than 100 dead bodies have already been de
hvered to friends, while some ten or twelve re
main so charred and disfgured as to proven
identification. The ruins are believed to con
tain the bodies of at least so more, swelling tn
total killed to about 200. The wounded hav
all been removed from the City Hall, many O
them being taken to their homes out of town
The work OF clearing away the ruins was cor
tnued on Thursday, but was necessarily abar
doned until suitable machinery could be got {
prosecute the work. 1t is an almost herculea
J labor to overhaul this immense pile G
: brick, stone, broken machinery, etc. The mos
OF the bodies are supposed to remain in th
southeast corner, from which part of the ruin
, there comes up to the unmistakable oder prC
duced by the combustion of human bodies.
WORDS AND ACTIoNs.-The Augusta (Ga
Dispatch says: We were willing to put q
much faith as anybody in the professions
the Boston people in their late Union meetin
but it is rather startling contrast between the
words and their actions, when thew 90 to Il
polls, with the eloquent words of Everett an
Gushing still ringing in their ears, and elect
Black Republican Lincoln) for Mayor. ov
an eminently conservative National candida
lWightman.l 1t won't do. We solid men