Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-07-13


The sight was too much for even the |
military men and old firemen on the
ground to bear without shudder and
turning away of faces. Human forms
leaping through flames 100 feet or more
down, down to sure death, presented
sight the stoniest heart could not witness
unmoyed.
HERo's END.
The last man on that tower died the
hero's DEATH among all those heroes who
faced the furnace below them. He had
waited without apparent fear until there
was only himself left, like the boy on the
deck OF the CasaDianca. He was fireman,
and he grasped the remnant of the burn
ing rope just as the whole tower structure
parted diagonally and fell toward the
north, right over the PROSTATE bodies OF
the poor fellows who had leaped to escape
the pitiless flames. The last man who
went down to death with the tower kept
feet down as far as the rope went and then
the rush of flames and hot air was SO great
that his body was turned round and round
in the passage within sight of all and the
blazing tower fell over his form making
funeral pyre and ending his agony il he
was net dead before striking tberoo One
victim remained on the tower until the
flames from below had burned his legs SO
that the flesh peeled from the bone.
WORLDS FAIR GROUNDS, CHICAGO,
ILL, July 1850 a. m.-The remains
of five of the victims of last nights fire
have just been removed to the morgue,
burned beyond recognition.
THE CITY WILL CONTROL THE BUILDINGS
Mayor Harrison is quoted as follows:
swell, this yesterdays calamity at
the Fair grounds] settles one thing.
The city of Chicago is going TO assume
control over those buildings, as far as
protecting life is concerned, and will do
so at once.
Tomorrow morning / will see that
all these buildings are carefully in
spected, and If changes necessary for
the safety of the people are found ad-
visable, they must be made. Every day
$4,000 people visit the top of the Manu-
facturers Building.
II have seen myself fully 5000 people
there at once. In the event of fire
panic, hardly two of them would escape.
These things must be looked to and they
will be If it takes every police officer in
Chicago. It is little late now but the
city will take no more chances. That
cold storage building would hever have
been built If the city authorities had
possessed voice in the matter, and
now we are going to speak, and speak
so that the world will know that the
blood of these men is not upon us, and
that we will have no more of these
awful catastrophes IL we can avoid it."
OWNERS OF TIE BURNED BUILDING
ASSIGN.
CHICAGO, ILL, July 1.-THE Hercules
Iron Works Company, owner of the
cold storage warehouse at the Fair
grounds, the burning Of which yester-
| day resulted in the loss of so many fire.
men, made an assignment for the bene-
| fit of creditors this morning. The
Chicago Title and Trust Company is
named as assignee. q y s--s-- .sat@-r,
| The assignment was caused by the
heavy financial loss entaiied by the cold
storage pavilion fire yesterday. The
company was incorporated in 1886, with
capital stock Of 100000. 1t owns
plant at Aurora covering seven acres.
Its assetsare estimated 100000, against
100000 liabilities. Yesterdays fire
caused a loss of 100000.
THE RUINS VIEWED BY 10000 PEOPLE.
The most interesting exhibit at the
I
ruins of the cold storage and t struc-
ture, destroyed yesterday by fire, and
10000 people this morning crowded
arohnd the debris eagerly watching the
search for dead bodies.
Early this morning three more bodies
were recovered from the ruins, but they
were so badly charred and disfigured as
TO make recognition absolutely inn
possible.
One thing seems quite evident, how
overland that is that the bodies discov-
cred are not the remains of firemen.
The locality in which they were found
seems to preclude this possibility. ALI
the firemen who lost their lives were
huddled up in one place in the dread
full fire-trap at the top Of the shaft, and
as they fell victims, one by one, to the
flames their bodies naturally fell some-
where within the small circles surround
ing the smoke stack. The bodies recov-
cred to-day were evidently not the re-
mains of any who jumped or fell from
the shaft, because they were found at o
somewhat remote distance from this
point and under mass of steampipe
and machinery that must have fallen
from above.
On one of the bodies was found a
leather belt to which was attached a
pair of steel pincers, thus practically
proving the remains to be those of a
lineman.
The discovery gave fresh color to the
fearful apprehension that the fremen
were by no means the only ones who
fell victims to the flames, and the pub
lie at once became disposed to doubt the
declarations yesterday that were made
by the supervising foreman, that all
employees and visitors were out of the
building before the confagration had
reached dangerous stage.
THOUSANDS AT THE RUINS.
All through the long hours of the
night while the search for the dead was
going on, morbid crowd of several
hundred people hung around the scene
and this morning the fascination OF
death attracted thousands more people
to the ruins. The ravages of fire amply
served to demonstrate the unsub-
stantial, fiimsy and infammable con-
, dition Of the structure. The thin
layer of stuff that gave an appear
ance of marble solidity to the building
has dropped off and disclosed frame
work of light pine and laths at points
where the usual visitor naturally sup
posed supports of stone or marble ex-
listed. Even in the unconsumed portion,
all the supports and essential timber are
found to be light and tlimsy, and ap-
parently entirely inadequate to a struc-
ture Of that magnitude. Of course all
this is now visible to the naked eye, and