The evening world., 1888-05-04
RISKED HIS LIFE TWICE.
ROUNDSMAN SHIELDS RESCUES FOUR
LITTLE ONES AT A FIRE.

Two Trips Through sitting Fumes aud Thick
Smoke into n Turning seventh Avenue
Tenrmen mt House to save ChiIdren Ioi-
gotten by Their pnrents-Slpepiug Ten
ants Aroused into Terror-The LOSSES.
The building at $40 and ISL Seventh avenue
is a four-story marble-front structure, with
stores on the ground floor and tenements
above.
Early this morning the building began to
fill with sitting fumes and smoke. coming
from the basement, and at about 4.40 il was
discovered that there was Il fire under Oscar
krause's drug store. The blaze had started
among n lot of acids and other chemicals, and
the burning of such stuff gave to the fumes
their particularly dangerous character.
Aroused fro m sleep into terror, the dwell
ers i'll the tenements On the uppor floors pre-
cipitatcly left the building, and not until
they had reached the street. screaming and
only partially dressed, did it occur to some
of the fathers and mothers that they had left
children behind.
Their cries for the abandoned little ones
were pitiful. The cries were taken up by the
crowd which had begun to gather, and
reac he'd the ears of Ruundsman John Shields,
who was among the policeman that Capt.
Reilly, of the Thirtieth street station, brought
to the fire.
Roundsman Shields ran to the rear of the
building and breaking through the window
OF Edward Holakovsky's cigar store, obtained
an entrance.
The fire had not worked up from the base
ment, but the fumes from the burning chemi-
Gals were thick and pungent. Through the
heavy smoke the officer CROPPED his way up to
the second floor, where, in u rear
room, he fund Otto Bauer. aged three years,
and Annie Bauer, aged ten.
These children were carried down to the
street, and then there was a cry that two
more were in the building. Back went the
burden On the first floor.
There liz ed Edward Holakovsky, and there
were found his two children, Mile, aged
five years and Eddie, aged four. They, too,
were brought out in safety, and Roundsman
Shields was allowed to return to the station
house; He was so begrimed with smoke as
to be hardly recognizable, and he breathed
with great difficulty.
Some of the people on the upper floors
were afraid to use the stairways to escape.
but crowded at the front windows, wringing
their hands and screaming for help.
A Frenchman and his wife named Lelong
lived on the top. floor, and they started with
their two children to climb across the stills
from the windows of No. $40 to those of No.
347.
The crowd in the street shouted at them
not to do so, and they hesitated. That was
their salvation, for before they could move
again II ladder was raised and several tiremen
OF Capt. Cooper's da>hed III and
carried them safely down, amidss the cheers
of the crowd.
Independently Fireman Murray, of Truck
~, carried II woman Town the ladder from
the third story. Her name could not be
learned.
Another fireman carried a six-year-old girl
named Minnie Lamb down the fre-escape in
the rear from the third floor. The other
members of the Lamb family, including the
father, mother and two sons, got down the
same way without assistance.
Henry Stock. the owner of the building.
lived on the second floor. His loss is about
$500, covered by insurance. Oscar Krause,
the druggist. puts his loss at 81, 500. The
stock of Holakovsky, the cigar dealer. was
damaged $1,000. Both were insured.
The name of Roundsman Shields will be
presented to the Police Commissioners for
honorable mention, together with that OF
Roundsman Charles l.. Albertson.
The latter rescued Annie Faun from the
burning dwelling at 53 West Twenty-eighth
street, on April 25, and to his overcoat are
still clinging shreds of skin hich came from
the woman blistored body when he wrapped
the garment about her.