The Newtown bee., 1881-01-12
BURNED TO DEATH,

A few minutes before eight o'clock in the morning a fire broke out in New York tene- ment house-a five-story brick building on Madison street--and ten persons-two women and eight children-were either sufiocated by the smoke or burned to death. Several other inmates of the building were also in- Iured by jumping from the windows or roof. The cause of the fire was the explosion of gasoline machine on the first floor, which two | plumbers were using to thaw out some frozen water pipes. They were working directly under the stairway, and in some way the gasoline in the machine caught fire and the burning liquid was scattered in every direc- | ton. The house is an old one, and the | wood was very dry and rotten. The flames rusled up the narrow, steep stairway, and as theiron ladder of the f,re-escape was placed direstiy in front of the windows opening on the hallway every avenue of escape was cut oil. The flames spread very rapidly, and the hrstintimation many of the occupants had of anydanger was when the thick volumes of smcke and flames poured in at the doorway of tieir rooms.
 | he scene was a terrible one st the time of thearriyal ot the firemen, who were on the spoieight minutes after the alarm sounded. At Madison and James streets was collected an sager crowd, who could only see the smoke risiig above the buidings The window casiigs were on fire, and from the windows leapei hungrily curling tongues of flames. The floors and partitions were in blaze. At first | seemed to be an ordinary fire. But suddenly the faces of the Iookers-on grew pale Agomzing shrieks and screams rang out I from the upper stories, and thrill of horror | ran through the spectators at the thought of | the Cassidys on the fourth and the Sheridans on the fifth floor.
 May Sheridan, discovering the fire, had called to her mother and sisters, and running to the scutee had pushed it open and had sprung to tie roof of No. 37 Madison street. The fire followed her, cutting of the escape of the othert. column ol flame and smoke ten feet in height shot up through the scuttle. Policemen Ealy and Davis, of the Oak street | station, clinped to the root from James street and saved pme of the inmates. But the shrieks thatrose above the roar of the flames, the crackle shivering glass and shouts ot the | crowd told many human beings suffering a horrible deah. The little court into which the house opned was so intensely hot from the fire thatlke fircmen could not enter 1t 10 raise their lalders. At last, getting upon ad- | joining buildings, they poured torrents of wate. l upon the ire. The moans within grew | fainter Jhse ot tie victims who escaped death by in,k Hing flame were smothered by the black ht smoke.
 In half afhour the house was gutted and the flames were practically extinguished. Half reluctantly firemen and policemen began the search br the dead. There was an ex- | clamation oihorror as the first man who crept up the bla6ened stairs reached the fourth | floor. In tn kitchen in the rear lay the body of Mrs. Bridset Cassidy, burned almost to a crisp, while lear her were her three children -- aged respectively six, eight and one yeals- evidently snpthered by the smoke. On the other side olE Ehe hall were the bodies of Ellen Egan, aged tyo years, and John Walsh, boy of thirteen tears. The little girl, almost q baby, had quckly succumbed to the noxious fumes and WIS found dead under the bed On the fifth fioorwere the bodies of Mrs. Sheridan and three children, aged respectively fomteen,
 five and thr,e years. John Egan, four years old, Annie Egan seven years old, and Minnie Egan, aged nine, were injured, but not seri- ously.
 William c Patton, the plumber engaged in thawing out the frozen pipes, and Timothy Harrington, an assistant, were arrested, the former being pit on $10,00O bail while the | ruuter, who ueceIVeu soIno sIIs5uu UuIrIo, rus sent to the hospital as prisoner.