The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-07-28
THE CHICAGO CYPRIANs.

SCENES DURING THE FIRE AMONG THE DEMI-
MoNDE-sIx HUNDRED GIRLS TURNED LOOSE
INFO THE STREETS.
The Chicago correspondent of the st. Louis
Republican writes thus of peculiar chapter
OF the late fire: The scenes in the region of
tho conflagration during its hight were halt
ludlcrous and half pitiable. The greater
part o. the district burned over was inhabited
by the worst deniZens of the town. 1t was
peculiarly the resort of the demi-monde and
that, too, Of the most shameless type; the
most desperate, reckless and abandoned girls
to be found on the face of the earth. For
two or three blocks along Third and Fourth
avenues, right in the center of the confiagra-
ton. nearly every house was a "maison de
joe, and the flames caught them during
business hours. so TO speak. The scene, as
these creatures were reused and driven from
their dens by the rapidly advancing flames,
beggared all attempts at description. 1t is
that at least six hundred soiled
ones were hustled out of tn cir
abiding places in less than three hour s.
Most of them lost all their wardrobes ana
some of them did not save even that scanty
OUTFIT which is known as ''the dress one has
on" Out they came, white, yellow, tawny
and black some dressed, some half dressed,
some undressed, and out came their male
companions with them. For once the revel
was turned into a rout and the orgy into a
pdnlC. III SICob NlOhuo bucJ Jul
upon the streets, with no roofs to shelter
their heads, the flames of confiagration be-
hind, and of hell before them. All up into
the city they swarmed, and upon the lake
front, their white robes and their whittier
faces CHASTITY in the glare of the flames, their
eyes wet with despair or dry with terror too
abject for tears, their long hair streaming
in the fierce wind that was tanning the red
ruin behind them, their hearts sinking into
THE UTTER DESPERATION
of women scorned and then driven from the
very homes that scorn had given them to
dwell in. 1t seemed almost like a double
ostracism. Some of them found places of
temporary shelter, but the greater portion
csmped out until this morning on the lake
front, in the vacant lots below the Gar
diner House. They hod no lack of COM
pany, nor OF good cheer, so far as plenty to
drink was concerned, for about two-thirds
of them made night and day hideous while
the excitement lasted. This morning
went down to look at the men,
agerie. Most of the animals were
gone, but enough remained to give an idea
of what the show had been. On the out
skirts of the crowd was little wee bi t of
girl, not more than sixteen, I should
Judge. She had escaped in her night-dress,
and had succeeded in saving a bed-blanket
as she fled. She sat on the ground with her
| blanket wrapped about her; her round
cheeks were stained with tears and discol-
ored with dust and cinders; her blue eyes
were bleared and leaden, and her long silky
hair fell in tangled masses almost to the
ground.
Camping out, sis?'' said interogatively.
She looked up blankly.
Have you no place to go?" asked.
Eyes, 1 have,'' she replied petulantly,
"but what business is it of yours? i Just
came out here by the lake to cool of. It's
a great pity folks can't
! And that was the last heard as / walked
along. Further on were two more older and
better schooled in adversely than THEN juve-
nile sister had just met. These two were
exhausting the profane vocabulary anent
some fellows who had been down there the
night before with an impious article of
whisky which had reduced the girls 20 a
condition that enabled the fellows to steal
two or three diamond rings and watch
| from the pitable creatures. What shall we
I think of a thing in the shape of man that
will plumber homeless woman of the town?
But of such is Chicago-that is to say,
such things happen here. think the sad
dess sight / ever saw was these homeless,
hopeless girls, sbivering out upon the lake
font in the sharp air of the early morning.
More saddening even than the spectacle of
sixty acres of wreck the fire had wrought
for the last can be rebuilt cleaner, purer
than ii was before; but the girls never.