The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1877-08-22
A FATAL FIRE.
Several Girls and Men Burned to Death ut
n Fire In Cincinnati.

Several Girls and Men Burned to Death ut
n Fire in Cincinnati.
The following telegraphic account is
given of the recent fire in Cincinnati by
which q number of persons their lives
The building consumed was 3 FIVE
story brick, near the corner of Eighth
street and Broadway, and was used as a
cigar box mandatory. Nearly all the
employees, mostly girls, and fifteen or
eighteen in number, were at work in he
third or fourth story when the alarm
sounded, but so rapid was the spread of
the flames in the dry, combustible ma
terial with which the place was stored,
that instantly all Means of escape to the
lower floor was cut off. The terrified
inmates rushed from one part of the
building to the other, not daring to
Jump to the ground. Two of the girls,
more prompt and courageous than the
rest, ran to the burning stairway, dash
ed through the flames and fell exhausted
and badly burned at the bottom. Their
injuries we're not fatal. The others ran
from window to window, i%mploring the
crowd outside to do something to rescue
them, but every effort failed, owing to
the marvellous rapidity with which the
flames spread through the building.
One man succeeded in raising q ladder,
but falling bricks and burning pieces of
timber drove him away. Gradually the
victims were driven upward toward the
roof, where all possibility of escape was
cut off. Three minutes later the whole
building was on fire, and the cries of the
inmates were drowned in the roaring
flames. It was scarcely ten minutes
from the time the alarm was given until
the fire was bursting out of every win
dow and shooting upward from the roof.
AS soon as the flames were under
sufficient control the iremen began to
look for the bodies that we're in the
ruins. They soon discovered in the
cellar a mass of smoking remains, which
proved to be the bodies of four unfor-
tunate victims. They were lying almost
in a heap, rs if death had overtaken
them when budding together in terror in
a corner of the building. Three of them
were o identified by scraps of cloth
ing or peculiarities Of teeth, but the
fourth was burned beyond recognition.
Three men jumped from the second story
and escaped unhurt. One other re-
ceived such injuries that he died in three
or four hours. It is stated by those who
saw the beginning of the fire, that
Frank Studier, one of the victims, was
standing on the street when he saw the
girls in the upper stories appealing for
help. He called out that he would soon
help them out, and darted up the stair
way, but was soon suffocated and fell in
the flames. Almost before the iremen
were aware hat the inmates of the upper
stories were cut off from the streets, the
walls were falling. Had there been time
for deliberation the girls might have ex-
changed certain death for a few broken
bones by jumping from the second and
third stories. The building was a per-
feet fre-trap, being pierced from top to
bottom by o narrow stairway and elevator
tunnel, stored with everything that WAS
combustible, and furnished with no
form of fre-escape.
Several adjoining buildings, used as
dwelling houses and small workshops,
were also burned. The total loss by the
fire will be from $75, 900 to 500, 900.
The insurance is very light. Two fire.
men were overcome by the intense heat
of the sun and of the burning building,
and we're carried to their homes in an
,,pooporio,,c condition