The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-04-13
ANOTHER HOLOCAUST.
This Time in st. Louis--Forty Lives
Lost.

This Time in st. Louis--Forty Lives
Lost.
The Southern Hotel at st. Louis was
burned on Wednesday morning. IL was
full of inmates. The building was six
stories high. The fire originated in the
basement about two o'clock in the
morning.
st. Louis specials say that before the
engines arrived at the Southern hotel
the entire upper stories were in flames.
At two O'Clock the scene was indescrib-
able. The windows in the upper sto-
ries were crowded with shrieking men
and women, whom il seemed impossi-
BILE to save. A few had been rescued
by ladders placed on the Fourth street
portico, but OH the other three sides of
the building the longest ladders fell far
short of reaching the windows. Peter
Blow, a son of of the former minister to
Brazil, was sleeping in his room on the
sixth floor, and succeeded, after strcnu-
Gus exertions, in escaping with bro
ken arm. The building Is six stories
high, and Blow thinks majority of the
inmates of the upper stories must have
persisted. Two men. unrccognized
were killed by jumping from the third
story, and n third badly manged.
Five women were rescued from the
sixth story by firemen, who, after as
cending patent ladders. succeeded in
getting up TO the half-suIiocated crea-
IuIcs. The fire is said to have origina-
ted in store room. The number of
lives lost cannot be given, but it is
feared forty OF fifty persisted, either be-
ing burned or smothered. The fire
caught III the storeroom in the base
ment, and was first seen coming through
the ground floor just north of the office,
and in ten minutes il had assembled the
elevators and rotunda and spread itself
over the sixth floor, under the roof.
This floor was occupied entirely by en-
ployes, the largest part women. Frantic
men, women and children ran through
the halls shrieking in most hcartrend-
ing manner in their wild and desperate
efforts to escape. The smoke was so
dense in some of the halls that the gas
jets were extinguishcd, which rendered
egress, even TO those most familiar with
the building, difficult.
The density of the smoke drove many
guests back into their rooms, and they
rushed to the windows. Ladders were
raised as soon as possible, and women
and children, with nothing but their
night clothes on, were rescued. Some
tainted and others sunk exhausted to the
ground. The ladders gonorali,- were
too short to reach the fifth and sixth sto-
ries, but by hosting some of them on
the one-story balcony on the east side,
and the two-story balcony on the north
side, these floors were reached and all
at the windows rescued. The fire escape
saved many. While this work was 90
| ing on, some frightful scenes occurred.
One man who had been occupying II
window OH the Walnut street front be-
came desperate at the delay. lie tore
the sheets into strips, tied them togeth-
Ell, fastening this rope to the window
sill, and disregarding the fact that il
did not reach more than twenty feet, he
let himself down hand over hand. He
reached the end of the sheet and then
seemed to realize his position. lie
swung slowly to and fro, swayed BY the
breeze, his limbs convulsiveIy striving
TO catch upon something; then he let
go, turned round and round, and finally
struck on the stone tagging with sick
ening thud. lie died soon after.
Other men jumped from the fourth
story windows. One seemed to be not
dangerously hurt, while the other died.
A woman in the fifth story became pan
ic-stricken and jumped out, alighting up
on her feet. Sh" is still alive, Her hus-
band tore up bedding and lot it out ul
the window. To this the fircmen at
tached n rope which the man hauled up,
made il fast TO the window-sill, and safe
ly descended by 1t. j. T.. Wilson jumped
from fourth story window and was
killed. Andrew Ensman and Mrs.
Scott met death in the same way. The
mortality among the female help of the
hotel is feared to be great There were
two hundred of them, all of whom
lodged In the upper story. The panic
among them was perfectly terrible, and
a number jumped from the upper win
dows. Among those known to have
been killed in this manner were Bird
get Mead, Mary Carey, Bridget White,
Ellen Kelley, and several Others who
We're carried away by friends.