The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-05-28
A FEARFUL ACCIDENT.
Ten Girls Found Suffocated in a
Burning Structure at
Cincinnati.
Five or Six Other Lives Lost, Three
Being Dashed to Pieces on tho
Pavement.
One Mother Finds Three Of Her
Daughters Laid Out In
the M0rgue.

Cincinnati was, the other day. the scene
Of shocking fire disaster. by which six
teen or seventeen human lives were sacri-
feed. Eighteen girls, mostly the support
or help Of their families, lunched merrily
at noon in the large front room on the fifth
floor of the Sullivan printing works, No.
10 Sixth street. Two hours later most OF
them were dead. Ten Of them were suffo-
Gated by the smoke, their bodies shriveled
and scorched by the heat Of fire that
cut off retreat with scarcely warning 1t
would be hard to construct a more perfect
death trap. 1t was on the top floor, with
three windows in front and one In
the rear, where an ell of the building
gave room. 1t WAS entered from a mar
row stairway in the rear. which wound
around the elevator, we'll fenced-in with
wooden lattice work. The second floor
held the heavy presses. A boy brought up
gallon can filled with benzine to clean the
type forms. Nobody knows the cause but
something caused the benzine to explode
near the press next the elevator wall. The
burning fluid spread to the ink-well of the
press and to drying rack filed with
freshly printed sheets next the elevator.
Sullivan, the proprietor saw it. He caught
lot of heavy brown sheets of paper to
smother 1t out. In an instant all the room
saw it was useless. my God" said Sui
Ivan, tell the girls upstairs. His
brother few up the stairs to the
bindery. The flames were there as quickly
as he, climbing up the lattice work of the
elevator like a flash. The girls were terrified
out of their senses. The flames cut off
their only means of escape. They rushed
to the front windows. The flames reached
forward and caught at them. Five of them
leaped from the windows and were crushed
to death, or died within few minutes. A
great crowd had gathered and looked on
with groans and cries of horror or warning,
but were powerless to help. One or two
brave men tried to catch the girls as they
fell, but were only hurt themselves. The
men from the next building had caught
up long rope kept for such uses,
and going on the roof held it over win
dow. John Sullivan saw it, and helped first
one and another to catch it, and they
were safely lowered. BY that time the rest
were quiet and crouching in the corners or
on the floors, rapidly suffocating. Sulli-
van caught the rope, but had barely started
downward when the flames reached out
and burned the rope off, and he fell, never
breathing afterward. Before this, how
| ever another printer, who came up with
Sullivan, had remembered the skylght
near the front and above the side of the
room. Below it ran binders bench piled
! high with stock. Mounting this, he threw
open the skylight. and easily climbed out
| on the roof. Several others-both boys
| and girls-followed, but Sullivan and the
rest were too excited to notice this means
of escape, by which every one might easily
have been saved, since on the roof they
could have walked a square in any direc-
ton away from the fire and out of the
remotest danger. Meantime an alarm had
brought the firemen. SO well did they
work that within five minutes they were
able to enter the building and 60 to the fifth
floor. Here the bodies of ten girls were
found distorted In death. Some were
shriveled by the heat till their skin peeled
off, 1t was an awful tragedy, consummated
within very short time. Not over twenty
minutes had elapsed since the explosion OF
the benzine. The news seemed to permeate
the city as by an electric shock. The street
was packed with silent sympathetic crowds.
People sought for their dead children with
blanched faces and voiceless agony that
was pitiful and met instant sympathy from
thousands. The dead were borne out by
the firemen and laid out for recognition
for the few minutes before being
removed TO the morgue. An eye
witness says: "A loud scream attracted
nv attention, and, looking, 1 saw an
awful sight Black smoke was pouring
from the roof and fifth floor windows,
which were crowded with women and men.
They were screaming and throwing them
selves forward and backward from the
windows. i saw seven girls and two men
fall in heap and lie motionless and bleed
ing Cries of Stop jumping, for Gods
sake arose from the multitude, which
gathered in ON instant, as they spied a rope
thrown from the roof and dangling within
reach of those in the window. A girl
grasped it and climbed down nearly TO the
ground, and fell. A mamie was hero,
too-reached for it, but cries that it would
not bear the weight of two checked him.
The smoke was too much for him, and,
sooner than jeopardize the girl, he leaped
from the windo, and we picked him up d
terribly broken. The flames followe
them so closely that several we're on fire De
they Jumped from the window. The scene
was the most horrible 1 ever saw. IT,,
crowd cheered every time victim made
leap"
The scenes at Habig's undertaking es-
adjustment, where the bodies were taken
and where friends and relatives came to
identify them, were of the most painful
character. In one case policeman of Cow
lngtop, n.y., ldcntineu MS sisters LIZZIE
and Dolie Handel. who were twins. Mrs.
Meier found the body of her daughter, and
had to be led away from the terrible sight
Mrs. Leaban had the awful experience OF
finding her three daughters among the dead.
The fatal list, as now made up. Is Anna
Bell, aged 40; Dollie and Lizzie Handel,
twin sisters 20 years; Fannie Jones, q
years; Della, Katie, and Mary Leaban, sis
tiers, aged %. Ia, and 16. respectively; Katie
Lowry, 30 years; Lizzie Meier, 16 years
Annie Mcintyre, 20 years; Fannie Norton
"a years; Katie and Mary Putnam, sisters
% and 10, respectively; John Sullivan. q
years: Lille Wynn, 20 years. The injured
are: Will Bishop. printer, % years, crushed
and burned, will probably die; Josie
Hawks, broken leg; Emma Pinchback, un-
conscious, will probably die; Mamie Shep-
herd, head badly cut.