The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-11-17

rig ht at the moment, not as composed as
a man ought to be under such circum-
stances. / knew there was great danger
and OF the difficulties of putting out
fire, and thought of the valuable library
and other property in danger. went TO
the door of the speakers room and my
impression is that L opened that door,
because 1 wanted to find out where the
fire. was. 1t seemed to me TO have
originated in that room, and my object
was to find if it originated in that room,
and if IL did, to see how far IL had gone,
and get water, and, II possible, eXtln.
guish it. My impression Is that Kicked
open the door some one else may say
they opened it, but | think l kicked II
open. went in but only very little
distance. Judge Lee said step or two,
but think il very little distance. for L
knew the danger of such fire. l know
all about cotton and paper fires, because
l have seen many of them. 1t was like
the burning of MANY aales of cotton. |
saw the light lOc~ing like fire, and
was almost certai .twOuld burn up the
back out. :. II t think l had any busi-
ness in that II ON or could do any
good there, / then concluded the fire
was below, and we went down
stairs and went to the room below the one
had entered above and L doubt that L
kicked that door open, but my impress
sion is, / was the first man that looked
into that door. There was big flame
then in that book room or lumber room.
The whole top of the books on the top OF
the pile of books was on ire. My I'M
preston Is that | saw the fire on both
sides of the books which were piled upon
| each side of the room with passage be-
| tween but the fire first saw was on the
left hand side of the room towards the
northwest corner, but not perhaps right
up to the corner. 1t was rolling up
| against the walls and l concluded right
| then there was no use working there,
and 1 said, gentlemen. the thing to uo
is to get everything out OF the building.
| L had no idea the fire companies could
save it, because they didn't have suti-
| Client water, and it was under too much
| headway. | then went ont and hallowed
and gave the alarm of fire. | yelled out
to the comptroller's Office Tor them to
| telephone that the fire was raging, for L
| knew if there was any hope of saving the
building at all, the fire companies must
do it. The trouble was, that the fire was
In the north side of the building. and it
| had been burning a long time before 1t
was discovered. When l went home af-
ter il was over, my wife told me she saw
| the smoke half an hour to an hour before
the alarm, coming out in dense volumes,
but she supposed papers were being
1
pers and bonds up there, causing
Ia great smoke, and 1t might
have been burning half an hour or
two hours before discovered because
papers and books ut first are slow 10 burn.
1t was furtunate we came out of the hall
when we did, because if Col. Norton had
not started after the plans and papers we
wanted and discovered it, Il believe he
was first to discovery, / believe we would
have had to escape from the windows. L
don't know that anybody knew OF the
fire until Col. Norton gave the alarm: IL
| was very slow fire and never heated the
walls enough to damage the shrubbery
near the building. Then as soon as
gave notice to telephone the alarm urged
the first thing to do vast save the valua-
BILE books and papers in the office OF the
board of education. / knew Mr.. HOl-
lingsworth, secretary of the board, was
gone out of the state. and that 1t
was necessary to organize a force
to save the papers in that office. But
found Mr.. Swindells and Mr.. Randolph at
work saving these papers, and they were
very well off for help and, as L could not
work much myself at fire, though have
been able to and have worked faithfully
at fires, I thought L would go out and
urge the crowd to come in and help. i
saw big crowd at the treasury building
and heard there was another fire started
down in the town and | began to think II