Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1892-02-08
AN AWFUL HOTEL FIRR.
The Hotel Royal, at New York,
Burned Yesterday Morning.
GUESTS ROUSED BY FLAMES AND
Smoke Penetrating Their Rooms Through the
Cracks-Hearrending Scenes Among the In
prisoned Guests Many Jumped From
Upper Windows and Were Killed.

New YORK, February "A disaster
appalling in horror, bringing to mind
the terrible occurrences in Park Place.
still fresh in the public mind, occurred
in this city early this morning.
The Hotel Royal, that well-known
landmark which has stood for
more than q quarter of cen
tury at the southeast corner OF Sixth
avenue and Fortieth street, was burned
to the ground and large number OF
people were burned, suffocated and
crushed in the ruins.
At the time of the disaster there
were nearly $50 guests in the hotel.
The hotel employees, all told, number
So. OF this number OF people five have
thus far been found dead, six are in the
hospital and sixty-three have been re-
ported alive. One hundred are still
missing. The number Of dead will prob
ably not be less Than thirty.
The scenes were heartrending and
APPALLED, even the firemen and police
men who are used to terrible scenes.
Soon after the fire broke out ambu-
lances arrived from the various hoSplt-
ais. Many physicians whose residences
are in the neighborhood were quickly
on the scene and did all they could to
relieve the injured.
Nearly every one OF the 124 rooms
which the hotel had on it's five hoors
was occupied by guests, many OF them
transient. In fact all the rooms save
four had been taken at l o'clock this
morning when Richard MeareS, the
proprietor, went to bed.
When the flames burst forth from
some unknown origin near the elevator
shaft, the shaft and the entire building
was instantly envoloped in flames.
At 1905 o'clock Mrs. Isabella Mears,
wife of Mr.. Richard Mears, proprietor
of the hotel, awakened her husband,
telling him the house was on fire. She
heard the cracking of the flames, and
saw smoke coming through the crew
ices of their bed room door Mr..
Mears had only retired at one o'clock
and was aroused with difficulty. lie
sprang out of bed and ran into the hall
way.
Volumes of smoke filled the halls and
the flames were making their way rap
idly I'D the elevator shaft. Their apart
DIUIS WtIG Ol 'ASNN
forty feet from the elevator.
One glance at the situatiln vas
enough TO tell him the story. He ran
back to his wife's room and shouted:
.Now you follow me-" snatched up
coat and again ran into the hallway.
He fought his way straight to the stair
case, supposing that his wife was close
behind him. The passageway was
choked with dense smoke which almost
strangled him.
Then throwing his overcoat over his
head to prevent suffocation, bent his
head low and groped his way to the
bannisters, on which he placed his left
hand. Flames were shooting up from
below. His hand, which was on the
railing, was burned and his hair was
singed. His situation was perilous. To
run down one stairs for two flights
| meant death, and so he, swinging him
self ooer the hand-rail, jumped twenty
feet to the ground floor. He landed on
his feet without broken bone and made
his way to the street.
Mr.. Meares was among the first to
leave the burning building, and when
he made his exit not n fire engine had
arrived. But even in those few minutes
the flames had gotten their grip on the
| fated structure, and fire was shooting
from all the windows of the upper floors.
When Mr.. Meares reached safety in the
street he realized that his wife was not
with him.
At that moment q hook and ladder
arrived. Meares implored them to save
his wife. A ladder was quickly placed
in position TO window which he said
was his wife's room. Up the ladder
| Fireman Merritt ran. The window Sc
! lected was not the right room. In it
was an unknown, who quickly stepped
ont or to the ladder and was carried
down in safety. Then the ladder was
placed against the window of Mrs.
Meares' room. A young man ran MIN
bly up to help save the woman, who
had already stepped upon the lad
! der.
MeareS ran up the ladder, too, and
stepped off to the roof or the veranda
over the entrance to the Office to steady
| his wife when she came down. She was
very nervous, and in making the de-
scent slipped and fell to the sidewalk.
She was picked up with sprained an
kle and several body bruises.
In the meantime Policeman Gallagher
! had rung in an alarm. which was fol-
| lowed by two calls for ambulances.
The scenes at the fire before the fire
companies arrived were heartrending.
| One man, whose name is not known,
sprang from third-story window and
was dashed to death on the ground be-
low. People turned their faces away
mortified at the sight.
A moment later another man leaped
from a window and was instantly killed.
Shortly afterward two women jumped
from windows and were dead when
picked up. Their bodies were taken to
10 the Thirteenth street station house
and afterwards, unidentified, removed
to the morgue.
Several Others had dropped from win
dows or slid down ropes with which
every room In the hotel were provided
and escaped with severe burns, while
MANY more had been injured In the
same way making their escape by the
fire escapes and were in the hands OF
the ambulance surgeons, who had been
summoned from Bellevue hospital and
| New York hospital
The surgeons had their hands full in
taking care of the injured and manned.
AN this time the fire was burning
| feacely, and il was plain TO be seen the
building was doomed. The structure
burned like. so mnch kindliDg wood.
The work of rescuing the guests still
went on. and many were taken from the
windows by fremen and policemen
Mr.. Frederick Uhlman. dealer in hops,
has been a guest at the Hotel Royal for
years and lived with his brother Simon,