St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-07-23
Gut OFF FROM ESCAPE
A Family Of Four Persons
Cremated in a Cincinnati
Tenement.
TWO Others Fatally Burned
and Many Injured in the
Firetrap.
Cloudbursts in Colorado Wash
Out Many Miles Of Rail-
road.
Butchery of a Ruined Girl by
Her Lover and a Sur
geOn.

CINCINNATI, O., July 22.-At about
10:30 tonight, double alarm rang out
from Box 16. The engines dashed
down to Public landing to find
house No. A Front street all
ablaze. 1t was four-story brick,
known as the John Christie tenement
house. The first story was occupied by
Solomon MenSki as secondhand store.
All the other floors were occupied as
tenements, and while the flames
were eating their way to the roof,
there were thirty people in the build
ing. A great crowd on the outside
shouted to the police, who arrived first,
and to the firemen, who arrived later,
that the people inside were burning
up. With commendable bravery the
police groped into the deadly suffo-
eating darkness, and began the work Of
rescuing. The firemen arriving, fire
ladders and lanterns were brought into
reQuisition, and the work of rescuing
the burning and recovering the
dead kept pace with that of eXtinguiSh-
ing, or rather, of checking the fire.
The building was practically destroyed.
In the second storywere two families of
two more, numbering ten persons; in
the fourth were two families. also num-
bering ten persons. The dead and in
Jured, so far as can be learned at this
writing, are as follows:
Z SOLOMON MENSKI. MRS. MENSKI, his
wife.
EVA MENsKI, their twelve-year-old
daughter
ERKAN MENsKI, their seven-year-o
son.
INJUREDi
GUS HITZWELL,
EVA MISSES,
Of the injured the first two are likely
to die and the last-named has
chances Of recovery. Solomon Men
ski and his family occupied the
rear end of the second story
directly over where the fire is sup
posed to have started. The people of
the third and fourth stories fed to the
roof of an adjoining building, from
which they were taken down
ON the Chicago elevated fire
ladders by fremen and police.
Many of the women were found un-
conscious. One elderly woman was on
her knees praying, and seemed oblivious
to everything. There was but one
exit to the street for these
poor people, and that was by
an old narrow, rickety pine
stairway. the best of fuel for the flames.
At the outset of the fire the police, at
the risk of their lives, managed to
save some of the ten peo-
floor, but the excitement and
confusion incident to the event is such
that no one can state exactly how many.
Nor are the casualties all known GER
tainly at this hour. People are
anxiously calling at the morgue,
at the hospital, and at the
police stations, seeking friends
known to have been in the fatal build
ing, but not yet accounted for The
occupants of the building were poor
working people, some of them opera
tives in shoe factories, some
express drivers, and others la
borers on the public land.
While the fire was burning and the
work of rescuing was in progress there
was the greatest excitement in the
crowds of spectators. When every
body was successfully passed down
the ladder shout went up and
then followed death-like silence.
In fact, from the first the noise
was all among the spectators. Not a
moan or a scream was heard from the
inmates of the death prison. AS soon
as the dead OF the injured were taken
out they were removed to the mOrgue
or the hospital, and the living, able to
: help themselves, fed pricipitately from
the horrible scene.