Morning journal and courier., 1883-01-11
News by Telegraph
 FROM ALL QUARTERS. From Sleep to Death. Slumbering Hotel People
 Aroused, by Fire: RAPID HEADWAY BY THE FLAMES. Terrified Inmates Leaping
 From the Windows. NEARLY A HUNDRED LIVES LOST, Awful Scenes in the Burn
 ing Building.
RAPID HEADWAY BY THE FLAMES.
NEARLY A HUNDRED LIVES LOST.
A TERRIBLE CALAMITY.

A Hotel In Flames-The Sleeping Inmates
 Awakened By the Fire-The Flames
 Gain Quick Headway-ProbabIy 8
 Hundred Persons Burned-Tom Thumb
 and His Wife Saved-A Brides Sad Fate
 -Heartrending Scenes i'm the Burning
 BuiIdfng-DetS1ls of the Awful Affair.
 MILWAUKEE, Jan. 1O.-This morning about 4 o'clock the NeWkan House, corner of Michigan street and Broadway, was laid in ashes. In less than half an hour after the fire was discovered the whole building was in fames. Scenes of the utmost terror pre- vailed. The inmates jumped by dozens from upper stories to the stone sidewalks. The shrieks of the unfortunate filled the air. The people below were unable to render any aid. The employees of the hotel. which &C., commodated 800 guests, numbered s6, and mostly lodged in the sixth story. Their es- cape by way of the roof was cut of by the fire, and two fire ladders were not available for the same reason. A very few were saved by jumping on canvas. The fire spread with lightning rapidity and escape was cut off to many of the unfortunate inmates. Half-stupef1ed persons were found lying across the railways, and others, not quite dead, were lying on the floor of the Ameri- can Express office, their groans being heart rending. On an icy hagstone the body of an unknown man was lying covered only with 8 shirt. with both legs broken and his skull cleft in twain. Another poor fellow had crawled up the chamber of commerce steps, his back being broken. The bodies picked up in the alley were those of walters and girls who in the frenzy and panic jumped to the ground. Twenty bodies so burned as to be unrecognizabls are at the morgue. AS the fire progressed charred bodies were bur- jed in it's ruins. One after another of the unfortunates jumped from the fifth and sixth stories and fell with thud on the stones. The dead were taken to the Central police station as fast as possible, this being man of steamer No. 4, hada narrow escape, the building falling down on him with fearful crash. He was dragged out from heap of hot plates of galvanized iron cornices. In a very short time the buildings fronting on Water street began to burn. These were at once protected by steamers. At one time there were six persons hanging from one window sill of the fifth story at the same time, crying in agonizing tones for the help that could not be rendered them. One after another they released their grasp and met their fate. One man by letting himself down at arms length from the fifth story window put his feet through window below and reached the fourth window in safety. The operation was repeated until the third floor was reached. Each point gained in his perilous descent was greeted with encouraging cheers from the by- islanders. As he was putting his feet through the top of the second story window his hands
 Lr-- -srl . shriek he fell backwards, turning over several times and striking his head on the pavement. He was mangled beyond recognition. The heat was so intense that the cupola of the Chamber of Commerce opposite began to smoke. At the norgue there was horrible sight. Two small piers were soon filled with dead bodies tightly packed. Boys, men and girls were laid promiscuously on the stone floor almost in heap by the police patrol. As early as 6:3O there were seventeen bodies lying there. At the Central office the injured were received.
 man who jumped from the fifth story struck the telegraph wires on Michigan mass of flesh and bones. A number of peo- pie dropped out of the different stories into the canvas awning, but in majority of cases they were killed outright or sustained inju- ries which leave little hope of recovery. Dur ing the progress of the fire two men appear ed at window in an upper story, ,and as they looked down on the scene below the floor of the room gave way, and with an agonizing scream they fell backward into the vortex of flames Avon Johnson and his wife sprang from the fifth story. He was caught in jump ing in the canvas, but sustained injuries from which he died at 6 o'clock this morning His wife struck on the telegraph wires and bound ed over and was also caught in the canvas. but was so badly injured that she only sur vived her husband about an hour. While these scenes were being enacted on the Broadway and the Michigan sides of the building one of still greater horror was taking place in the alley in the rear. The servants quarters were in the northwest part of the hotel. Those who appeared on the scene did all they could to rescue the bewildered guests, and great many were taken out of the front entrance and from 8 small balcony running along the Broadway side of the building. But on the south and west sides the scene was dreadful. Patrol wagons were filled with bodies seven minutes after their arrival at the scene. Even the sidewalks were covered with bodies. The great loss of life was not from burning, but from frightened people jumping from the windows. Edward Bullock, of Lancaster, Wis.,. guest, was awakened by the flames bursting into his room. He escaped by quilt rope and left his vest, 8 gold watch and $50 behind him. The ser vants' quarters were in the northwest part of the building, remote from the quarter in which the flames were raging, but all means of escape by the stairways were cut of by the flames. As the terrible roaring and cracking of the flames fell upon their ears they became panic stricken, and eight of them followed each ether in leaping from the dizzy height to the ground in the alley. The jumping canvas was at hand, but it was powerless in the conflict with
  tims' blood. At this juncture the cool-head- ed hero of the day appeared on the top of the building opposite the servants quarters with a ladder in his hand. For . moment the long unwieldy thing was poised in the air and then descended with a crash through the window of the hotel. Then, amid the cheers of the multitude the daring man dragged the helpless creatures across the slight bridge, till fully dozen were rescued. They were all of them in their night clothes. and many of them were badly frozen before they could be taken to shelter. woman in a dead faint, unable to help herself in any way, was dragged over the bridge.
 Miss Sutton was married in Chicago yes terday to John Gilbert of the Minnie Palmer troupe. She is now dead and he cannot re- cover He jumped from the window with his wife in his arms. John ARtisdel, propri- etor of the house, ran up and down, raving maniac, crying, '.Oh, my God, who set that
 
 with horror The cold was intense and the fremen suffered terribly in their efforts to subdue the flames. The Tom Thumb and Madison Square companies were in the hotel and as far as known all escaped. Tom Thumb escaped by the front entrance and his wife was saved by frenen through the fire escape.
 At 1 o'clock the list of the dead who have been identified is as follows; Allen Johnson, D. G. Powers, Mrs. John Gilbert, the acter's wife; Mrs. Kelley, servant; Miss O'Neill, servant; Bessie Brown. ehanbermaid; Thom- as vanloot, retired capitalist Maggie Owens, servant; Lizzie Kelley, servant; Annie Brown, servant; Kate Linehan, servant Maggie Sullivan, servant; Augusta Gesa, Mitchell Builan, servant; 0. How ey, conductor on the Wisconsin Central road. Among the missing are Maggie Finnegan, Lizzie Kelley, servant; Mary Mack, servant; William Mckenzie, night watchman; colored boy name not given; Hon. George Reed, brother in law of Mrs. Alex. Mitchell Captain J. P! Vose, United States engineering corps; James A. Ernest, shuIlsbarg, Wis Scott and wife. clerks in the St. Paul railway office; MT. Huff, Iowa J. H. Tough, Peoria; Mr. George Smith, Milwaukee; ". F. Durand, Bradley Kellogg, Ashton; MT. Martelle, Milwaukee; ". Fl. Hall, Laporte, Ind Among the hurt and burned are T. B. Elliott, Milwaukee; Barney eFanhoag, Mil