The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1894-07-13
APPLIED THE TORCH
INCENDIARISM IS RAMPANT IN THE
CHICAGO YARDS.
Thousands of Cars Arc Burned ANA
an Enormous mount OF Merchan-
disc In Destroyed or stolen - a
Night of Terror.

Chicago, July with flaming torch
iawless hordcs of tircbuss We're at Work
last night at Il score OF point in the
south half of Chicago. Fires were rag
ing i'll every direction among the ncinei'-
on. railroad yards thousands OF cars and
tens Of thousands of dorrars worth OF
npl chandise went up lii SMOKE Jr were
carried off by the now frenzied mobs OF
rioters. Incendiarism WAS rampant,
alarm after alarm followed in quick sue
cession all night and from early morn
ing until midnight reports OF fresh hes
followed each other with startling rapid
ty, being confined, however, principally
to railroad rolling stock and buildings.
against which thus far, the greater part
OF the lrob's fury has been directed.
Early in the morning a blaze started
among some overturned cars at kens!ng-
ton. quickly communicating 10 other
tracks filled with long lines of cars,
many containing valuable merchandise
were soon blazing furiously. Famed by
strong winds there We're at this point
total of eighty cars wiped ont. At the
stock yards one blaze after another was
reported, and from the outlying districts
came urgent calls for engines ana police
protection, increasing in frequency.
But with the falling shades of night
came the climax of the fiery festival.
The Pan Handle yards from Fifty-hft
to Sixty y-third streets, eight blocks. We're
a mass Of fire. Ten tracks, containing
from thousand to two thousand cars,
half OF them loaded, is a total loss. No
water being at hand the fire burned itself
out The Pan Handle station at Sixty
third street was also fired and destroyed.
The Grand Trunk yards ut Elston was
sea of flames. Five hundred box cars
are supposed to have been burned. All
efforts to check the flames were futile.
The dag shanties aud other railroad prop
erty also burned and no water except
one stream from a plug at Fifty-frst
street could be obtained While directing
the movements of the Eleventh battalion
at this point Fire Marshal Fitzpatrick
was seized by thoroughly frenzied mob
OF hrebugs and thrown into a pond, from
which he was rescued more dead than
alive.
At Hyde Park. near the worlds fair
grounds. the ashcs of forty cars are now
smouldering. and after numerous efforts
the mob has succeeded in firing the Hi
nois Central shops at Burnside.
AT the stock yards about fifty toughs
few Of whom Were railroad men, skulked
rom point to point and set a large Lum-
Der of fires. Their method was thor
oughly unique. Loading several hand
cars with buckets Of waste and Gil
they would glide around among the cars
in the darkness lighting wads of the in
yhammable stuff, which would be thrown
into the open doors of the cars as they
passed by them. Fires sprung up Oh
every hand and no organized effort on the
part of the police seemed to be under way
to intercept them. The aggregate of the
losses to the railroads will be enormous.
Miles of their tracks have been ruined BY
the fierce ieat. hundreds of switch and
signal towers with their expensive
Teehsnism utterly ruined. Thousands
of cars and untold quantities of merchan-
disc of every imaginable description have
fed the flames and gorged the larders of
thieves. Locomotives have been wrecked
and disabled: miles of tangled wires and
prostrate poles litter the ground
Only One residence has been burned
thus far as direct result Of the in
cendiaries work, and that one was in
the stock yards district, and business
buildings have escaped altogether. But
the wanton destruction of railway prop
erty continues unchee ked. and with in
creaslng destructiveness. The maddened
mobs. worked up to the highest pitch Of
fury, paralleled the scenes of the COM
muIe. and 1t appears as though nothing
short of miracle can prevent an armed
demonstration against them and the sac
rihce OF many lives.
To illustrate the tactics resorted to BY
the incendiaries to hamper the work of
the ire department empty cartridges
were forced into the key holes Of the fire
alarm boxes, hremen were knocked down
with stones and bricks, and while work
ing at fires the horses of the department
were stolen.
The stoning Of incoming trains was .
common pastme with the mobs and sew
eral persons We're more or less injured
by flying missiles. One engineer on q
Rock Island train was SO badly injured
that it was at first supposed that he was
dead. The assaults of the mob. how
ever. were not met with passive re-
sistance which characterized the course
pursued yesterday. On two occasions at
least. their attacks were met with ac-
curately aimed lead. During riot in the
morning over an incoming milk train at
kensington a deputy United States
marshal shot and killed two strikers, and
during the afternoon the deputies guard
ing an incoming Baltimore 4 Ohio pas
senger train replied to yolley of shots
and stones which the strikers showered
upon them by turning their revolvers
loose, killing four of their assailants and
wounding number of others.
Of the situation in general it may be
said to have broadened and strengthened
its grip. The most significant feature of
1t is the carrying of the strike East to
Cleveland. tying up all the connections
Of the seaboard trunk lines there. with
the promise that by tomorrow it will
reach the trunk lines themselves and so
practically reach the Atlantic seaboard
by tying up all roads at Buffalo Thus
the strike would extend from ocean to
ocean. There is no notable relief at the
points heretofore placed under embargo