The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-02-05
The Terrible Disaster In Chilli.

TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED BODIES RKOovERED-
VIM TIE VICTIMS WERE NOT sAvRD-IN-
CIDENTs OF THE GATAsTRoPHH-rHr s1rp
OF THE CHURCH TO BE OCCUPIED BY
MONUMENT.
The Providence Journal publishes a
letter received by Mr.. W. A. PEARor Of
Providence, from his father, resident in
Santiago, Chill, who witnessed the recent
appalling catastrophe by which more than
two thousand human beings were burned
to death. 1t appears that the failure to
rescue the unfortunate victims was owing
to the idiotic police system of the Chil;ans.
The writer says:
hear you asking, why were those suf-
ferers not rescued? Yes, why were they
not rescued? My heart sickens within me
at the question. Those determined, stupid
ignoramuses of policemen Fifty foreign
ers, had they been allowed to work, and to
work in their own way, could and would
have rescued nearly or quite the whole
mass. But no, as is always the case here
on an alarm Of fire, the police placed
sentry on every avenue leading to the fire.
They have, as you know, no fire engines
except some two or three old Gordon
pumps. l fought my way past the police
one entire square, by wrestling guns and
sabres from their hands, knocking them
out of my way and being knocked in re-
turn, until l was overpowered by numbers
and compelled to retreat, and all within
hearing of the most heart-rending lamen-
tations that ever sounded on human ears
And nearly every foreigner Jared similar
to myself-was kept back.
Mr.. Demilow of the gas works received
bayOnet wound at the fire while in the
act of rescuing young lady that he rec
Ognized, a Miss Iarreu. He had fought
his way in company with one of the work
men at the gas works to the church, and
battered down side or private door and
saw Miss Larreu she at the same time
recognized him and called on him to
save her. He could not enter in con-
sequence of a sheet of flame between
them. He reached his cane to her, which
she grasped with both hands. when he and
his friend attempted to drag her through
the flames, but she was so surrounded and
hemmed in with the dead and dying that
her strength was not sufficient. They
abandoned this method and went in pur-
suit of some other means to rescue her,
and returned again, when, on presenting
themselves with the means of saving her
at the door, the police ordered them back,
and not needing the order, he (Demilow)
was bayoneted. His friends wrested the
gun from the policeman, knocked him
senseless to the ground, and made second
attempt to save the poor girl. But the
time lost in dispute with the police was a
life lost to her. This is only one of many
similar scenes.
Your brother Charles battered door
down on Gale Bandera, or Flagg street,
entered and found in small ante-room
some thirty females, and all living, but
like SO many statues, perfectly unconscious.
He was compelled to take many of them
in his arms and carry them into the street
and saved them all. Mr.. Meiggs and II.
Keith fought their way through the po-
lice and reached the church at a late hour,
and when the tower was falling all about
them succeeded in saving several. Mr..
Meiggs saw woman still alive under a
crowd of others then dead. She recog-
Missed him and called to him, saying for
God sake, save met" He rushed through
the fire to her, then attempted to lift her
out from among the dead, but they were
SO firmly wedged in about her and on her,
be had to abandon that. He the procured
a lassO, tasted that about her waist, and
the united strength of eight men could not
extricate her from her companions, and
they had to leave her amid such cries for
help as no christian heart could endure,
neither can language describe.
The police had full charge of the front
of the church and in such force that the
foreigners could do nothing there The
police rescued but few. Axes and crow
bars were not to be had until late hour
A single instance will suffice to show the
stupidity of the police An officer of the
police set some half dozen of bis men to
hew or batter down one of those large
front doors with their old broadswords.
The doors are made of two inch hard wood
double thickness, and riveted through and
through with iron rivets, You can judge
the effect their old cutlasses made on the
doors better than can describe it.
The scene at the church the following
day was the most revolving, heart distress
ing, that ever was witnessed since the
world was created. There were the poor
unfortunate dead in all stages of consump-
ton, the greater portion Of them naked.
But few could be recognised by their
surviving friends. The police ordered on
the peOnes or laborers to remove the dead.
Those demons-wOrse than devils damned
--cOmmenced their work with as much
hilarity as you ever saw children enter on
some pleasure excursion. The dead were
pulled about and pulled apart as one would
pull apart tangled brushwood. You could
see two or more ponies pulling on a limb
of some one buried under the others, un-
til the limb was pulled from the body.
Then they would have peon howl of ex-
ultatiOn, and commence at another. The
dead were actually separated by crow