Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-03-15
A NEWSPAPER HORROR.
Six Lives Lost by the burning or the Sprin -
field (Mnss-) s'Union" Omce-Employes
Leap From the Fifth Story.

Six Lives Lost by the burning or the Spring
field (sInss-) ssUnion" Omce-Employes
Leap From the Fifth Story.
SPRINGFIELD. Mass, March, S.-The Office Of
the Evening UsaioR, at the corner OF Main and
WorthIngton streets, was destroyed by fire
about four O'Clock yesterday afternoon, six
OF the employees meeting with a terrible
death, most of them jumping from the fifth
story and being crushed into shapeless
mass in the street below.
The fire was first discovered in the mail
ing room. and clouds of snioxe were pour
iEg out of the lower story windows be-
fore the fifty souls on the upper floors
were aware or their danger. The flames
shot up an old elev ator In the rear, cutting
of escape by the stairway, and most OF the
employees who escaped made their way to
the ground by way OF the roof in the rear.
The men and women who crowded into the
editorial rooms found themselves cut of
from escape in the rear and had to face the
b orr bic alternative OF burning TO death or
jumping 10 the sidewalk below and fright
full mutIlation.
The fire department responded promptly.
but 1T seemed an age before the tiremen
were able TO reach the windows in the fifth
story. A ladder was put to the fourth
story, and the sight of rescue so near
seemed to madden the suffering groups at
two windows in the story above, who
dropped in succession to the sidewalk. Six
fell in this way-some of them forced off
and others madly leaping, causing the
crowd TO groan ami turn their heads as
they whirled through the air.
1t is thought the fire started among the
lumber IN q closet on the ground floor. The
flames were drawn up the elevator well
and spread through the composing room on
the fifth floor, where thirty compositOrs,
men and women, were at work. By the
time the fire depart ment arrived, the top
windows were filed with poor, despairIng
human beings, who did not at first seem to
realize their dreadful position. The crowd
underneath cried to them to have courage,
and on no account to try TO jump or climb
down, and they at first determined to obey.
There was SO much delay in raising the
ladders, however, that the unfortunate
victims become panic-strlcken at their
danger, and began TO jump or let
themselves drop from the windows. Shrieks
of horror issued from the crowd OF Specta-
tors as the bod es were seen to fall through
the air, and Explanations of sympathy,
mingled with the groans of the wounded,
who were picked up and carried away to
hospitals or drug stores. A large sheet
of canvas was procured as quickly as pos
sible, and stretched below the windows.
number of men held it. Three men and
one women tell upon it, but the shock was
so great that they struck with great force,
though, of course, the fall was somewhat
broken. They were picked up insensIble.
The following is the list of casualties /:
Dead-H. j. Goulding, aged 81. married,
foreman of the composing room; Mss Ger
tie Thompson, aged Is, proofreader, killed
by jumping or falling; Mrs. Hattie Z. Far
ley, aged %, society editor; G. l. Brown,
aged %, compostor; w. E. Hovey, aged %,
compositor, died at the hospital; J. Lanson,
aged S. compositor. Injured-T. G.. Ems
worth. aged Is, clerk in counting room,
compound fracture OF Leg hand and wrist,
Turned, probably fatally; Thomas Dono-
hue, aged 81, compositor, left thigh frac-
ture1, face burned, probably fatally; II.
H. Merrick, employee of Smiths rubber
stamp works, badly injured.