The morning call., 1894-10-28

tn6 names were seen uaDclUS III tuo WIZ
dows by people in the street that an alarm
of fire was turned in by policeman.
When the fremen arrived the ire oid mol
present an alarming aspect Inc people
at the windows were rescued with LADDERS
and boards, some escaping with hardly
any clothes. A woman who was carried
down by fireman screamed out that ner
baby was in the building. and fireman
went up ladder and brought it down.
d. B. Glass, Edward Haveln and c. b.
johnson jumped to the ground and were
injured so that they required to be taken
to a hospital. All three will recover.
The crowd in the street then supposed
that all the lodgers had escaped. The fire.
men PLAYED water through the windows
and were re-enforced by the fireboat, the
building being only a short distance from
the water front.
At 2:45 o'clock the fire was under con-
troll and the firemen were able to enter the
shell of iron. At the head of the stairs at
the WeSt-street entrance they found the
body of man pinned to the floor by the
ruins of bed. He had apparently just
heard the alarm and was dressing when
overcome by the smoke and suffocated,
for the only clothing he had on was his
trousers and boots. The body was carried
10 the foot OF the stairs by the tremen
and then taken to the Northern Pacific
waiting-rOom and wrapped in comforter.
The body was terribly burned.
Continuing their search the fremen dis
covered corpse after corpse, until at 4
O'Clock they had counted fifteen. Subse-
quently another was found. Most of the
bodies were left where they lay until day.
light in the hope that the proprietor might
Identify them By locating the room on the
register, for all the bodies except two
were cbarred beyond possibility of recog-
nizing the features. One poor fellow was
caught in the rush of the cOnflagration
near the top of the Vests treet stairway
and sank down overcome with the smoke
and flames. The fremen fought to keep
the IRE away from his body, but were
driven back.
In one of the Railways body charred
black and with not a vestige of clothing
was found. A little further on in the
same passageway was another body, evil
IDENTIFY hat of woman. face upward and
hands outstretched as if fighting for her
life and appealing for assistance which
never came. There was little left Of the
woman's form, for part of the body was
charred, and the burned bones lay around
il. In another hall or passageway was
another body. 1t was evidently that of
an aged woman. Her body was fearfully
cOntorted; he face was upward, and the
form presented was that of one who had
died in the most violent agony. The
burned arms and hands were uplfted,
and in one blackened, burned hand was a
handful of hair, as If she, in her agony,
had clutched it in despair, when the
fire demon overlook and overpowered her.
The saddest sight of all was found in an
inside room off the passageway which led
to West street. There calmly lying in a
eharred and blackened bed was evidently
an entire family. The father lay on one
side. the wife next to him, and little
burned and blackened arm, the flesh fall
ing iG shreds from it, the small fingers
clutched, showed that little child was
among the victims.
In an adjoining room was a still more
horrible sight. In corner of a small in
side room two charred and naked skeletons
met the gaze. The flesh was burned from
each. and the first, that of a man with
blackened srumps of arms. seemed to be
fighting an impending danger. Imme-
diately behind him, also bolt upright and
clutching his waist, was the skeleton of a
woman. The eyes were burned from the
sockets of each. but even then one could
easily imagine the look of horror, the
deadly fear which pervaded the fated
couple as they fought with an unseen foe.
Startled, they had risen from their couch,
the smoke and flames had rushed in upon
them and before they had realized their
awful danger they were overpOwered and
died the most horrible of deaths.
In portion of the hotel where the
flames did not destroy the woodwork the
bodies of two men were found. One was
completely dressed and the other was in
his night clothes. They were suffocated
by smoke. In one of the ruined rooms at
the end CT a barrow hall, under an un-
broken window, where one man was found
dead, Is a white streak on the wall un-
touched by fire, untarnished by smoke,
kept thus by the upraised arm of this vic
tim, where that arm rested against the
wall when in last struggle he reached
upward for help in his awful agony. Ia
the corner of a room where the upper
parts of the walls are burned away is an
unburned spot upon the floor and on both
the corner walls. In that place, against
the wall, sat wife, dead, her arms about
the waist OF her dead husband. who sat be-
sfore her on the floor, his feet and arms
burned off, his eyes burned out
and her hands burned off. In an
other room is a long unburned spot,
the shape of man. where one was found
dressed and dead, with his face badly
burned.
The bodies were taken to the Morgue
this morning in boxes or canvas sacks
Most OF the bodies were wrapped In
stained and dirty bed clothing from thu
store rooms of the burned hotel. Some Of
them were so badly burned that only the
wrappings held the limbs and trunk from
falling asunder. AS the rigor of death bat
long before set in, it was almost impossi
bic to sirnighten out the distorted limbs o
some of the dead. One corpse, that of
man whose head was burned entirely of
was bowed up almost as if tied in knot
he had died on his hands and knees. with hi
face buried in the bedclothes. The bodie
of the two little girls we're naked and wer
distorted into shapes hardly human. Tbei
little hands and feet were entirely con
sumed and only the ends of the charre,
bones OF the legs and arms remained. L
one Of the little bodies was ghastly rent
where the steam from the roasting entrail
had burst out and the bowels protruded
The head of this corpse was SO badl
burned that the white brain-m after wa