The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-07-05
ST. LOUIS LETTER.
international Press Bureaus Letter
ST. LOUIS, June 10th, 1877.

ern Hotel and the appalling loss of
life involved in the conhagration, there
has been a ceaseless, unfagging inter
est kept up here in the matter of fire
This has been agitated by!
the fire department, encouraged by the
LIE insurance companies, favored by1
the municipal functionaries, and in
ddlged or participated in by all classes
of citizens. The stranger in. the city
is liable, while taking stroll, at any
time to have thrust upon his astonish-
ed view the most incomprehensible
and startling performances. He turns
a. corner and comes upon q large build.
ing; he notices a crowd congregated in
the. streets, the back of each head rest
ing solidly upon the shoulders and the
gaze intently fixed upon the sky as if
in spiritual supplication; he sees some
hotel OF warehouse covered with ropes,
ladders, pouches and much indescriba-
bile paraphernalia, with innumerable
men and boys sWarming in and out Of
the windows, up and down the ladders,
and over and among the ropes and
cords like nest Of spiders cn a holt
day ga1nbol. Upon this scene the at
tention Of the crowd is riyeted, while
there is kept up running comment
upon the operations of the performers,
with an occasional suggestion from
some enthusiast or q Witticism from
some brazen throat. During such a
scene and performance somewhat
similar at the rear wall Of Lindell
hotel ON Thursday evening it was that
Michael Carey, an efficient though a
somewhat enthusiastic member Of the
city fire department, lost his life. The
efficacy Of what is" known as the st.
Aubin pouch as means of escape to
the ground from lofty position was
being tested, The apparatus, as its
name indicates, is simply long pouch
of canvas, one end of which is fasten-
ed in a window above while the other
remains at or near the ground at such
distance from the building as to form
as convenient an angle as circumstan-
ces will permit for the guage of the
speed of the descent. In this instance
number Of persons had safely &C
complished the novel passage in the
tube, Carey himself had made one or
two trips and started, as he said, with
prophetic accuracy for the last time. |
When more than half way down, from
some cause not yet fully known, the
canvass ripped with loud, grating
noise, the body Of the unfortunate
fireman shot from its confinement into
the open air, and was precipitated, with |
a sickening 'thud," to the Nicholson
Of the street. A few mo-
ments later a lifeless, mangled corpse
lay upon the floor Of the hotel billiard |
room. He had not spoken-had only
spasmodically gasped and expired.
COMMENCEMENT SEASON.
Although the Mississippi Valley can |
boast of no first-class college, measur-
ed by the standard of merit established |
by the old and richly endowed educa-
tional institutions Of the East,-has
do such thing as university within
the full meaning of the term in it's
New England and European applica-I
tion,-it may be said, in respect to
primary facilities, that no community |
in the world has better public schools
than those Of St. Louis and other
cities and towns along the valley of
the great river. Something, however,
is also being done in the cause of high
CT education: number of collegiate
Institutions scattered through the
principal cities and towns are laboringt
enough, and some of them
have fair rolls Of students. In St.Louis,
University stands at the
head Of the list of schools : it's endow-
ment is insufficient for the needs of a
good college, and the attendance is
small, the senior class this year num-
)ering only about half-a-dozen. On
account, probably, of the absence of a
college in this State, the
standard Of scholarship at the public
high schools has been elevated gradu-
lily from year to year, until it has
become much higher than those of
many institutions empowered by legis-