The Monticellonian., 1894-11-02
AN AWFUL HOLOCAUST.

SEATTLE. Wash, Oct, 2S.-The peo- ple of this city were tortifed yester- day by a hotel holoeattst 5thieh over shado : s in it's fatalities the great fire of 1889, when the greater portion of the city was laid in ashes
 In the destruction of the West-street hotel by fire at least sixteen inmates lost their lives. amid all the ago. nies and horrors of cremation under such surroundings. The victims iden- tified so far by shreds of unburned clothing are as follows;
 F. Boltmatl.
 Angus Mcdonald.
 (. Wilson Anderson.
 Mrs. ]. N Huffman and two daugh ters.
 Andrew Ottes0n.
 Mrs. Andrew Otteson.
 The building vas two-story struc ture of corrugated iron. occupying an entire square on tie water front. tt was a fire trap with q maze of passages which would confuse any person in the absence of light. The impossibility of escape from such a deathpen when flames were licking up everything within reach and suffocating smoke filled the heated air was apparent to the firemen and mortified spectators on the street below When the depart ment responded to the alarm the build ing was mass of flames. The news quickly spread that there were half hundred guests in the blazing trap, twenty of whom were transients.
 IL was half an hour after midnight when the fire apparatus came rushing to the scene of death, but the fire fefeeitF did the flames spread to every part of the structure that d terrible panic prevailed among the inmates. Clad onis in their night clothing, men and women jumped from the windows without waiting to see if the firemed could rescue them. Most of those who jumped from the seeond=story windows sustained no injury of serious char aeter. Three of those who escaped be- ing burned alive or suffocated to death were injured by jumping, one man breaking leg in his fall.
 \ frantic mother threw I baby of year into the street. where T police man caught it without harm.
 ". c. R. News dropped twenty feet to the ground and picked himself mp unhnrt.
 Joseph \. May tied tine sheets and Used them as rope to let himself down in safety.
 C |. Glass waited Tt the window of his room until his hair was burned off Then he jumped, his head striking the ground He was taken with the other injured te a hospital.
 The gallant fremen came Hpon a victim whose identity is not known, near the top of the West-street stair way He was trapped by the rush of the flames and overcome by heat and smoke. The fremen fought hard to keep the flames back, but they were soon driven away.
 F. F. Bryant, police officer, who was the first to see the flames, turned in the alarm and then bravely rushed back to save human lives. He found Susan Allen and her little child at a window on the West-street side. The woman was crying pitifully for some one to save her child. Bryant shouted for her to drop it. which she did. The officer caught the descending bit of 1 humanity in his arms and then set a plank against the window by which the mother slid down in safety.
 The proprietor of the fire box. II. r. Butler was in bed when the flames burst into view from the street and had a narrow escape from death.
 His son, S. r. Butler, who was night clerk. says the fire originated from the explosion of kerosene lamp in the 1 kitchen, which was located on the see end floor near the lower hall. The 3und of the explosion was clearly l heard on the street. Butler raised the cry of fire, which aroused the guests tc their danger, and to their death 1T many cases. Many of the victims awol<e and rushing into the narrow winding passages found themselve. face to face with flames, smoke and death. Some of the dead were suffo eated or buraed to death in their beds parts of their eharred bodies being found in that way.
 Escape by the narrow stairways wa, cut off to those who got that far, ane all rushed to the only avenue of safety the windows overlooking the street.
 The body of the first victim wa' found in a room, with one leg in his trousers and his shoe partly laced The head was covered with bedelothe' under the bed. It was too much burned to be identified.
 Not person in the building escaped with anything except the clothes they had on them.
 After two hours hard work the fire men had the flames under control Only the gutted hull of the hotel wa' left The woodwork of the interior was almost entirely consumed, but thu corrugated iron walls were left stand ing.
 As soon as the work of searching fo the dead was considered safe, thirteel bodies were quickly found in the room and passages, the pastures and be- covering of many showing they hat died in awful agony after d desperat' fight against flame and smoke.
 Close together in the bed of one room were found the blackened bodies of ; man. his wife and child.
 In the corner of another chamber o death were the bodies of Il man ane woman sitting erect. All the fesl had been burned off The skull were blackened and grinning. Tn stumps of the mans arms wer closed over his head as if he had die,