The Greenville enterprise. [volume] (Greenville, S.C.) 1870-1873, 1871-01-04
ert Of the 9tate nm0 Commtru.

hurled, bnt dragged slowly into
eternity, through the most horrible
death gates known to humanity.
Only Dante, in his widest flights
of poetic imagination, could have
depicted one.half the horrors of
THE BURNING OF TIE sporswoop
! Not since the burning of the old
Theatre has Richmond witnessed
such a scene.
Built without any brick parti
tions above the fret floor, the
flames having once gotten head.
way, any attempt to check them
was worse than futile. In a few
minutes after the fire was discov-
cred by the watchlnan, who hap.
pened to pass the pantry where a
stove had been negligently allow
ed to burn, and which, becoming
red hot, communicated to the floor,
it had rushed with lightning speed
from cellar to garret, and by the
time the fire department had be,
come thoroughly organized for
work, the whole interior of the i'm.
mense structure was one sheet of
living fiame-mad, wild, Kissing
flame-in its resistless, desolating
sweep, burling ath&art the frosty
sky masses of burning timber, like
some volcanic demon laboring to
disgorge itself--now silent, as if to
gather new strength now roaring,
cracking, laundering, as if striving
to drown
THE sHRIEKs OF IT'S VICTIMS,
the hoarse, confused cries of the
firemcn, the shrill whistles Of the
engines and the agonizing hum of
the swaying crowd of citizens be.
low, ready to do and die in the
cause of humanity, but powerless.
"sAvE MY CHILDREN !"
Here n hrnthor looking frantically
for a sister, or wife pleading for
some tidings of her husband, who
when last seen was Drawing fire and
smoke to save some relation there
a man sturified by horror and
fear; beside him another, whose
gallant spirit knows not the mean
ing of the latter word, and who,
having saved one friend, is prepar-
ing to rush again into the jaws of
death to rescue another. Here Is
young.
SAM HINES
who has just brought two friends
from the fourth story out and rush
ed back for third, who is seen at
the window Of his room from the
street below but now the stairway
is in flames. Only one chance re.
mains ; it is to jump. He prepares
for the fearful leap. Brave hearts
will catch him, if he crushes them.
Too late; the fire fiend has claim
ed him. A volume of black, stiff.
ling smoke envelops him angry,
forked flames leap like serpents'
tongues from without the mass, and
his gallant soul is in eternity.
Creeping, writhing, Kissing dur.
ing the lulls of the winters blast
rushing as it springs fresh from its
lair-the demon finally seizes upon
two large buildings adjoining the
hotel. Then the scene, if possible,
becomes more fearful than before,
mingling rs it does the falling of
walls and the crashing of the floors
with the other.
HORRORS OF THE SCENE.
At one time it appeared as if
the destruction of the whole block
was inevitable. The night was the
severest of this winter, the spray
from the streams falling in hail up.
OH the halfdressed inmates of the
hotel, as they stood watching the
means of egress from the building,
to see if the next that rushed out
was brother, sister, husband,
wife, son or daughter, or to give a
word of encouragement to some
one poised between two horrible
forms of death. and powerless, ex-
cept to cry ont above the din be.
low,
"sAvE ME! I AM BURNING 7"
This heart.rendering appeal rang
out from more than fifty windows,
and rang ont only once. 1t is not
known positively that there were
more than five actual victims of
the flames, but the universal fear
is, that this does not approximate
the number. One short hour and
the fire fiend had done its worst.
Its progress had been stayed, but
two.tllirds of the block fronting
Main street, and running back
nearly the same distance, was q
fiery charnel lake, still smoking
and seething, but conquered.
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