The Benton weekly record., 1882-08-24
IN 4 HIVE OF RAGPICKERs.
A Fire In One Room that Burned
Two Children oDeatr1. @s
Pan1eostrlckon Tenants Swarnaazag
Down the Stairs Impede the Work
or tEae Firemen.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
Maria Eppoto, an Italian woman, who's
i husband is away In the country at work O.
q railroad, and who supported herself an
her two children by ragpicking, locked th
door Of her room at 25 Roosevelt street
early yesterday morning, after havin!
built 8 fire for breakfast, and went out
She left sleeping in the room her children
Ceballito, 4 years old, and Luigi, 2 year
old. The room was on the third floor
front, Of the four-story brick building. 4
hundred Italians make the house e rag
pickers' headquarters.
Soon after the woman had gone Police
| man John Hawkins saw smoke pouring
from the window Of her room, and gave
the alarm. When engine - arrived flames
| were bursting from the window. Truck
and Engines and 80 ratified up next. The
tlren1en Of - engine had tried to take
their hose up the stairway, but found il
impossible for time to make Roadway
against the horde Of ragpickers who were
tumbling headlong down stairs in the
smoke, heavily laden with household
goods. Every man had a trunk or q big
box sliding down behind him and held
back by his shoulders, and at the same
time had his arms full of babies or clothes
or furniture. Children lodged between
the mems legs and fell and sprawled on
the landings. The men and women fell
over the children and over each other.
There was no getting up stairs till these
got down.
eff 1t had not been Cor the panic among
the Italians said the foreman of Il En-
glne to reporter, II believe VIC would
have reached the door of the burning room
in time to burst it in and save the chill
dren. When we did get to the door we
kicked it in and volume of smoke and
fame rushed out into our faces. We drop
ped fiat on the floor and craWIe1 into the
room with the pipe pushed ahead of us, and
in few minutes we had gott fire down.
Then we listened second to learn wheth-
er any one was in the room or not, for We
did not know. None Of tho tenants had
told us word. Everybody was too busy
saving his own life and property. Sud-
denly one Of the men exclaimed that he
had found two bodies. BY this time the
e%enlya and stna So aattr-
The two children were IN q little bunk in
the front corner Of the room. It looked
like dry goods box with part Of the sides
The children lay with their
faces down, as though they had tried to
avoid the smoke and fame, but their bod
les were in the attitude Of sleep. Both
we're breathing, but were insensible. Two
If us carried them down the ladder in our
arms. The four-year-old child died at the
'oot of the ladder. The lower half Of his
body was burned. The other was sent to
he Chambers Street Hospital. It was
burned from the feet to above the knees"
The mother was found insensible in the
7ard back Of the house. She had returned
md learned from one Of the women that /
me Of her children was dead. She aeem~
ID dazed and wandered to the yard where t
he lay in faint till she was taken to the
Chambers Street Hospitcl. When she
earned at the hospital that one of her chill
1ren was there, she broke away from the |
attendants and ran about, screaming and
.rying, to find the child. She understood |
10 English, and all attempts to explain to
Ter that the child must not be disturbed
we're Ineffective. All Italian bootblack
vas finally procured, and through him it
ras interpreted to her that one child was
lead and the other dying. AT this aho be-
anne frantic. She was unable to tell her
husbands whereabouts. The second child
lied three hours later, and the screams of
he mother rang through the whole build
ngs at intervals all the afternoon.
THEy1s Hoop SNAKES.