The New York herald., 1872-12-12
The Fifth Avenue Holocaust-It Was
Crfmfnal-Was IL Murderf

Criminal-Was II AIurderf
In contemplating the terrible occurrence at
the Fifth Avenue Hotel, whereby eleven lives
are already known to have been sacrificed,
/ the feeling of indignation and disgust at the
inefficiency the blundering and the heartless-
ness of all the responsible parties becomes
deep and painful. The lessons of fires of
every description have been before us, and
men in charge of large buildings are supposed
to have profted by them. Yet in one of
the largest hotels in the city fire
occurs, at which every experience is shown
to have been disregarded and every blunder
committed that criminal negligence and folly
could be guilty of. The story told at
length elsewhere can be summed up
briefly, SO far as its vital points are concerned.
At a few minutes before eleven at night fire
breaks out in hotel crowded with guests, and
with a full corps of officials astir. The first
alarm is given by a servant girl who bursts
franhcally from her sleeping apartment on
the third floor. Whether the fire originated in
that room or one Immediately below is not
known accurately but it rapidly reached the
laundry elevator, which was lined with wood,
and on enclosed wooden staircase that ran in
shaft from the basement through seven floors
to the death-trap on top, where the poor scrub
girls lay asleep. Here, then, commences the
chapter Of ignorance, negligence and
cruelty. First, the alarm was not
given to the Fire Department, with
the selfish object of avoiding damage
to the carpets and furniture and lest panic
should seize the guests. Stupid and absurd
this proved within twenty minutes. In the
meantime, with as little haste as effectiveness,
the fire apparatus belonging to the hotel was
brought into operation. The binding smoke
and the cracking flames were mounting up
the narrow stairway and the acrid fumes were
filing the death trap at the top, where the
weary servants were asleep. Had they been
| forgotten? is the first question humanity
asks. In shame and horror we are obliged to
state they had not been. Aroused by the suf-
locating smoke, their shrill screams of agony
and despair rung out on the night, but no
effort was made to rescue them. An idiot who
knew where the fue-like shaft led to, even had
known that every instant the poor creatures
were left unaided counted like poison drops to
their life. No aid and no alarm. Rushing
along the corridor to meet the flames at the
head of the stairs, the poor girls struggled for
| life to get out at the windows But as with
foresight OF cruelty, these were barred with
iron gratings, and the death they fled from
| overlook them. Their cries became stilled,
and the monster who told HERALD reporter
that sit was only the damn servant girls
getting scared was saved all further brutali-
| ties on this score. From o dozen points
the barred windows of the death trap could
have been reached and every soul saved; but
! in the eyes of the managers the burning Of
eleven or twenty servant women seemed
nothing beside the idea of quieting the guests
on the floors below. If the fire stopped the
outcries of the poor creatures, it soon,
however, proved that it would make sign for
itself. The corridors became filed with smoke,
twenty or twenty-five precious moments had
been lost and the panic Of the guests, that
was feared, came with the arrival Of the fire.
men and the police In the hands of the
former, although not large force, the fire
was confined to the stairway shaft and the
servants sleeping rooms, although it appears
| little short of miracle that the entire build
ing was not laid in ashes The part played
by the police, on account of q defec-
tive system of cooperation with the
fremen, cannot be praised. Physically
brave and capable as they are, they were
not, according to the usual bad practice,
called on to assist in the work of battling the
flames, although their large number on the
scene suggests that they should have been
ordered to do so at once. We want skill at
their head, as well as courage and bravery in
the ranks.
From beginning to end it is a miserable
record that leaps from cool insecurity to the
verge of total destruction; from the crime of
not giving the alarm to the very perils that the
selfshness and ignorance which dictated it
sought to avoid; from the astounding heart
lessness of abandoning the fre-tortured
women to their fate to the murder-what else
can we call it t?-which hideously crowns it as
one of the greatest atrocities of the century.
It is, unfortunately, grade Of criminality to
which the law attaches no punish
ment. Nevertheless, those responsible for
the management of the hotel must
stand before the bar of public opin-
ion and meet its universal condemnation
unless they can acquit themselves. They
must answer for that narrow wooden stairway,
seven stories high being the only mode Of es-
cape from the wretched rookery at the top.
They must tell why the alarm was not given.
They must explain to a horrifed community
why no means were taken to reach the death
trap by the roof, which could be done as 'easy
as lying" that is, returning to the counter in
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