St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-05-22
Another Horror.

If life has occurred as that of to-day, with
So little occasion. In less than fifteen
minutes after the fatal blunder began six
teen or seventeen persons persisted. Look
ing over the scene. after the event, it is
plain that every life could haze been easily
saved. Short as was the time there We're
displays of thoughtful heroism that saved
two lives. but one of the heroes lost his
own. At $50 o'clock this afternoon
J. \. Green, city editor of the
Times-Star upon going up the
stairway to his Office saw dense clouds of
smoke issuing from the rear windows of
the building Mes 10 and p West Sixth
street and immediately telephOned the fire
department. An alarm brought the en-
gines almost instantly. and as the tiremen
could reach the building from front and
rearit was not fifteen minutes before the
fire was SO much under control that Chief
Engineer Wisby was enabled to reach the
fifth OF sixth floor. but he was too late 10
SAVE THE GIRLS
employed. and TO his horror he found ten
bodies living with hands to their faces, and
faces blackened aud distorted iii death. The
chief said. i'll speaking of it: The house is
not burned out: i'll fact the fire was chiefly
in the fifth story In the smoke | counted
ten girls lying upon boxes. tables and other
things. and some on the floor. Their cloth
ing was not burned. but the skin of the
hands was ScOrched. 1t was a terrible sight;
the worst | ever saw in my experience. The
girls Law where they had fallen, in their
wild and helpless despair" 1t has now
been fairly ascertained that the fire started
from a can of benzine on the second floor,
near the elevator shaft. \ boy OIL that floor
says he heard report, and instantly the
IRE leaped 10 the elevator shaft and up it.
The shaft reached to the top of the build
ing. and from the second to the fifth story
It was encircled by a wooden stairway,
which was the
ONLY MEANS OF ACCESS
to those floors The elevator shaft, to add
10 its combustibility, was encased with a
thin wooden lattice work. The second
floor. where the fire started. was the press
room, the third the composing room, the
fourth the storage and waste room, and the
fifth was the folding room. AS soon as the
fire started. John Sullivan. young man.
son Of the proprietor, ran up the stairway
to the fifth floor to give warning to the
girls Instantly, almost. he found he was
too late to get them down the stairs and that
his own retreat was cut off. What he did
for the frightened girls could only be told
BY the glimpSeS that could be seen of him
at the smoking window. whence four of the
girls had already leaped to their death. j.
r. Kingsley SON. and his foreman had gone
10 the roof of the building adjoining this on
the west. and knowing the girls We're i'm
priSoned on the floor below, they procured
6 rope and lowered to the window where
Sullivan was. He instantly grasped it. and
tying 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 again fastened it to another
girl and sent her down safely. The rope
came a third time and. as the other girls by
this time were all SutfOcated or were afraid
10 venture Sullivan fastened the rope to
himself and was being lowered when, as he
was half way down. the flames shot out of
a window and he fell, head foremost, to the
sidewalk. in the presence of a Mortified
crowd Of people who had witnessed his
heroism. When the girls We're jumping
from the window a large colored man hero
.ically tried to catch them and so break the
force of their fall. He nearly lost his own
life in the attempt. Within ten minutes
after the fire began the patrol wagons We're
called into use to carry away the wounded
and killed. As well as can be- ascertained
there were about
FIFTY OCCUPANTS
OF the building. of whom twenty or twenty
five were girls in the fifth story. The
boys We're on the second and third floors
and this accounts for their escape. All
agree that the spread of the flames was
almost instantaneous. Mr.. Kingsley. who
ran to his upper floors in the rear, where
the flames were in danger of coming
through his windows, found the smoke so
dense that he had to crawl on the floor to
reach his window and close it. All this
while there was an avenue Of escape which
the panc-Stricken girls did not think of
It was an opening in the roof. which they
could easily have reached from a bench
standing beside the wall. and once on the
roof they could have reached the other
buildings with ease. The lack of ready
access to this place lost
ALL THESE LIVES.
The fire was almost insignificant. The
wooden stairway around the elevator shaft
is not burned so as to be useless or even I'M
safe, yet the flames seem to have pervaGed
all the floors and to have ruined all the
paper and all other light combustible mat
ter. Sullivan estimates his loss at 1000
to SO, 900, with an ample insurance. The
loss to the building is slight The scenes
Hlbeg'S undertakeI'S establishment, where
the bodies were taken and where friends
and relatives came to identify them, were
OF the most painful character In one case
a policeman, of COvington. identified his
sisters, Lizzie and Dollie Handle. who were
twins. Mrs Meir 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 new
made up, is
ANNA BELL, aged As, wife of David P.
Bell, living at rs Lock street
DOLLIE and LIZZIE HANDE, twin sisters
aged 20 resided at T13 Scott street, Coying-
ton.
FANNIE JONES, aged %, lived at corner of
Liberty and Freeman streets.
DELLA, KITE and MARY LEABAN, sis
ters aged %, IA and Is respectively lived at
206 Sixth street.
KATIE LOWRY, aged 20, lived at Newport.
LIZ EE MIER, aged Is, resided at 345 Broad
way.
ANNIE MCINTYRE, aged 20, lived at 80
East Sixth street.
FANNIE NORTON, aged "a.
KATIE and MARY PUTNAM, sisters aged
% and 19 respectively.
JOHN SULLIVAN, aged 22, lived at 395
Broadway.
LILLE VIVIAN, aged 20, lived at IS East
Fifth street.
The injured are:
WILL BISHOP, printer, aged 90, lived at