The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1885-12-18
A HEROINE.

A New York Girl Who, at the Risk of Her
Own Life, Entered a Burning Tenement
House to Warn the Sleeping Inmates of
Their Danger--A Narrow Escape with
Her Life
NEW York, December 1S.-A four.
story brown stone building, East Tenth
street, is numbered 80 and 32. There is
store ON the ground floor, and in the
three upper stories of the east wing Mrs.
Farnham lets out furnished rooms to
dodgers. Mrs. Celia Kelly lives in the
west wing on the west side of the brick
wall that divides the houses in two. Miss
Celia Lynagh lives with her. 1t was
nearly half past two O'Clock when Miss
Lynagh was aroused by suspicious
smell of smoke. She Investigated and
found that it came from Mrs. Farm
HAMS premises at No. 80 Putting ON her
clothes she went down to the street and
pulled the bell of No. 80 and then tried
the door. 1t was open. Miss Lynagh shout
ed fire, but no one answered. Then she
resolutcly climbed the long stairs to the
second floor, groped her way along the
landing and raped on the doors.
"FIRE FIREi FIEEl"
she shouted, as loudly as the smoke
which filed her throat would let her,
There were hurried movements within
and preparations for flight. Up the second
and the third flights the brave girl groped
her way through the thickening smoke,
knocking on the doors and uttering her
warning cry. At the top the smoke
grew almost insufferable, but Miss
Lynagh did not shrink She knew
that people lived on the floor
and heard no sound to indicate
that they were awake. The hand
rails and balusters were hot and the
| smoke threatened to choke her at every
| step. At the head of the stairs she ran
| against door hammered on it and pushed
it open. A man was within sitting awake
in chair pulling on his clothes. "Hnrry,
hurry!" shouted the girl, sthe house Is
on fire.n He did not turn OF seem to pay
any attention to her. AS she turned she
saw the stairway at her feet between the
landing she stood on and the fourth
floor blaze into fire. Resolutely gather
ing her skirts about her, she made a dash
down the fight and got through the fire
| unscathed and reached the street in safety.
told them that there was one laggard
still on the top floor, cut off,
but that she thought he had gained
the roof through the scuttle. The fire.
men went up, but before they reached
the burning flight crash was heard in
the rear of the house and the missing
lodger was found in the back yard with a
sprained back. He was Charles A. Wat
son, thirty-four years old. The room was
in the rear and the iron ladder to the
scuttle in closet in front. Between them
were the stairs that were blazing by the
time he got ready to leave. Escape either
way was out of the question. Mr.. Wat
son did the next best thing that could be
done.
He shut his chamber door on the fire,
took the sheets from his bed and, knot.
ting them together, tied one end to the
bedstead and threw the other out of the
window. The rope thus made reached
to within Seven or eight feet of a marrow
extension, the roof of which was under
the second story windows. 1t was haz.
ardous to attempt to jump to it for feai
of falling over into the yard, but there
was nothing else to be done. Mr.. Wat
son let himself down the length Of
the rope and dropped. He dropped
on the edge of the narrow ledge
and from that into the yard. There The
fremen found him, unable to stir, ane
sent for an ambulance. The surgeon de
cided that his spine was injured ant
removed him to the New York Hospital