Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-02-10
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
Trying to Fix the Blame for
 the Hotel Royal Fire.
ONE SENSATIONAL STORY TOLD.
A HallbOy Says that the Night Clerk and
 Engineer Were Drunk.

Have Given the Alarm in Time to
 Prevent the Terrible Loss of Life
 Working the Ruins--Twenty Bodies
 RecOvered--EareIessW Work of the Ttal- ian LabOrer4--Mrs. Van NOrtIen's Dia-
 monds FOund--WhO Two of the Vic
 tims Were.
 NEW YORK, Feb. 1O.-Twenty bodies have been taken from the ruins of tho Hotel Royal Only eight have been iden- tified. The others lie at the BTorgue awaiting identification.
 A gang of Italians were at work all yesterday and last night digging for bodies. They work with no more eau tion than if they were making cellar in plain earth.
 Now and then they strike an article that should be preserved, but if not watched they throw it aside with other rubbish. It has required the utmost vigilance on the part of the overseers to keep the Italians from driving their picks and shOvels through human re- l mains.
 Que skull at the Morgue looks as though it had been struck with a pick axe. The body will probably never be identified.
 The other bodies found are probably beyond recognition, yet there are pieces of clothing, jewelry, etc, that may lead to their identification.
 Several bits of jewelry were taken from the ruins, among them an amethyst | brooch and two coral pins. with pend ants, marked HI. H." All the property recovered, some of the most trivial char acter, has been taken to the Thirteenth street police station, which was visited all day by a stream of inquirers. Most 1 of them had had no property in the hotel .ror had they friends there. Scores of people went to the Morgue ! yesterday looking for lost friends. One glance into the rough board caskets, 1 where lay simply charred mass of human flesh, and the identifiers started back with an exclamation of horror and the words: "I could not recognize any body i'll that form"
 The diamonds of Mrs. Hattie Van Nor | den, of which so much has been said, | were found in silver, gold-lined casket. | These jewels were identified by Henry Van Norden, who has hauNted the ruins ui&ht and day since early Sunday morn | ing. as the property of his missing wife. | There were four diamond rings, one pair | of diamond earrings, solitaire screw stud. one diamond scarf pin and badge l of the Benevolent Order of Elks. Fire Marshal Mitchell has instituted d
 searching investigation into the origin l of the fire which caused the disaster. X
 nurnber of employees were examined, but
 all had different theories as to the cause
 of the fire, and nothing definite was
 brought out. The bearing will be con ! tnueG tomorrow.
 A remarkable story was told yesterday
 hy Tom Fox, the head hallboy in the | house, which Corroborates the statement f made by Felix Kraener and other guests l that there was an outrageous delay in alarming the inmates of the house and
 in sending out an alarm of fire. If FoX's story be true terrible reck-
 cnng will be exacted of Night Clerk | Underwood and Engineer Harding. Fox | "il be called upon to testify before the
 fire marshal.
 To reporter Fox said "lf that mar | Underwood had been sober, most of the
 lives lost on Saturday night would have
 been saved. I left the house at 1:30 a. m.
 and was standing at the corner of Forty
 second street when the fire broke out. Then l ran back and helped to get the
 awake he would haze discovered the fire
 before it got any headway. He ant
 Harding managed to satisfy MT. Meare'
 that they were sober, but l know thai
 they weren't."
 Fox also said that Underwood was il
 the habit of procuring bottles of whiske. from the bar, which he and the engineer
 drank every night.