Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-05-22
FIFTEEN LIVES LOST.
Employees Of u Cincinnati Printing House
Burned TO Death.


Burned 10 Death.
By the fire in Sullivan's printing Office on
West Sixth street. CINCINNATI there were
sutiocated fifteen persons on the fifth floor
All but one of the victims were women and
girls employed in the printing Office -Four
persons were injured, two Of them perhaps
fatally. The damage to the building was
slight
The fire originated by the explosion Of a
gosOline stove on the second floor. The
flames entered the elevator chute, which is
next TO the stairway and all chance OF escape
was then cut off. The shaft reached to the
top TO the building, and from the third story
to the fifth flour it was encircled by wooden
stairway, which was the only means of access
TO those floors. The elevator shaft, to add to
its combustibility, was increased with thin
wooden lattice work. The second noor, where
the fire started, was the press room, the third
the composing room, the fourth storage ana
waste room and the fifth was tho folding
room.
THE HERO, SULLIVAN.
As soon as the fire started J ohm Sullivan, a
young man, cousin of the proprietor, ran up
the stairway TO the fifth floor to give warning
10 the girls. Instantly, almost, he found he
was too late to get them down tho stairway,
| and that his own retreat was cut oil. What
he did for the frightened girls could only be
told by the glimpses that could be seen OF
him at the smoking windows whence four
| girls had already leaped to their death.
j. II. Kingsley son and his fore
| man had gone to the roof of their
| building adjoining this on the west and
| knowing that the girls were imprisoned
on the floor below, they procured rope and
| lowered it to the window where Sullivan
was lie instantly grasped it, and fastening
one of the girls to it helped her out Of the
window and Kingsley and Shredder lowered
her safely to the sidewalk. The rope was
| brought up and Sullivan quickly fastened il
| to another girl and sent her down safely.
| The rop0 came third time, and as the other
| girls by this time were all suffocated or were
afraid TO venture, Sullivan fastened the rope
| to his own body, and was being lowered
when, as he was half way down, the flames
| shot out of a window and he fell head fore
most to the sidewalk in the presence Of a hor
| rified crowd of people who had witnessed his
| heroism. When the girls were jumping
from the windows large eolored man heroi' m
| cally tried to catch them and so break the
force of tho fall He nearly lost his own life
| i'm tho attempt
| AS well as can be ascertained, there were
about fifty occupants of tho building, of
whom twenty or twenty-five were girls in
| the fifth story. The boys were on the sec
| ond and third floors, and this accounts foi
| their escape. There was an avenue of escape
| which the panic-stricken girls did not think
Of 1t was an opening in the roof, which
1
standing beside the wall, and, once on the
| roof, they could have reached other build
| ings with perfect ease. The lack of ready
access to this place lost all these lives.
| THE FIREMEN's RELIEF.
The alarm brought the engines almost in
| stantly, and as the firemen could reach the
building from the front and the rear, it was
not fifteen minutes until the fire was so much
| under control that Chief Engineer Wisby
| oh IN
he was too late to rescue the girls employed
| there.
The chief said in speaking of it: "The
house is not burned out in fact, the fire was
| chiefly in the tifth-story. In the smoke
counted ten girls lying upon benches tables
! and other things; some on the floor. Their
| clothing was not burned, but the skin on the
backs of their hands was scorched. 1t was
a terrible sight, the worst 1 ever saw in my
| experience. The girls lay where they had
fallen in their wild and helpless despair"
| HEARTRENDiNd SCENES.
The scene of the fire was heartrending
Mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers
and friends crowded forward against the cor.
don OF police, wringing their hands and
moaning piteously; "Oh, God" " My dar-
lings!" HMy own little ,girl!' The police
were powerless TO stay the forward crush,
| and even rope Gordon was broken through.
Whenever a dead body was seen there was a
scene of domestic misery that bordered on
insanity. "The poor girls" was an oft-re-
| peated exclamation from sympathizing fe-
male hearts i'm the vast throng through which
| tho patrol wagons were necessarily driven,
| and as the minutes passed the throng was
augmented by hundreds, until lives became
endangered by the passing patrols. As soon
| AZ the search for the bodies became possible
they were taken out rapidly, not by ladders
| ON the outside, but they We're borne out OF the
| front door on the ground floor east, and one
whose face was badly discolored was taken
back in the building ON the west side of the
building and douched In water that stood on
| the floor at that side of the building
APPEARANCE OF THE DEAD.
The scene at the undertaker's was most
| distressing. Outside was a great crowd OF
broken-hearted relatives, sobbing incon-
| solably. AS soon as the bodies could be ar
ranged relatives were admitted. II was hard