The Portland daily press., 1894-04-09
FELL WITH A CRASH.
Many Lives Lost by the Collapse of Build
ing in Memphis.

Memphis, April S.-A tenement build
ing on the corner of Desoto and Beale
streets collapsed at 7.15 this morning.
Four dead bodies and five injured per-
sons are now at the hospital, and there
is no doubt that there are more bodies
beneath the ruins. The collapse was
witnessed by several persons.outside and
several inside survive to relate what lit
tie they know of this, one of the most
appalling disasters that ever occurred In
Memphis. There was creaking and
cracking, a swaying of walls and then
the collapse came with crash. great
cloud of dust fioated out upon the air
filing the street each way for block.
There was hurrying forward OF police,
fremen and citizens and the work of
rescue began. All the persons TAX en-
from the ruined building are colored.
The building was erected thlty-four
years ago of brick and was three and
one-half stories high with a slate roof.
1t was all one building, but was divided
by thick wall into two compartments.
1t had never been condemned as unsafe,
and was considered one Of the staunch-
est old buildings in the city. The scenes
at the rescue were horritying in the ex-
treme. The dead bodies were found all
badly crushed, the flesh torn and mutl-
lated. and some of them almost nude.
Half an hour after the collapse occurred
the news had travelled over the entire
city, and crowd gathered on the scene
until Beale and Desoto streets in the
vicinity were packed. The time for
church services came and went. and still
the crowd remained. AS each corpse
was lifted out, a groan would go up.
When darkness came, the large gathering
remained, and boys and men stepped
over the ruins to try and find any corpse
the laborers might have overlooked dur
ing the day. The work on the debris
began as soon as the collapse took place.
First. an old negro woman shook the
dust from her hack, arose from the top
of the heap and got away without assis-
tance. Then a woman's form was lifted
out, still alive, and soon the BODY aof a
man, still breathing, was pulled out.
These were sent to the city hospital.
Then came corpse and SO the work of
number of lives lost will not be known
until the debris is cleared away. There
were about fifty. rooms in the tenement.
half of which werefoccup1ed. Twenty
two people are known to have been in
the building at the time of the collapse.
Of these, six escaped without serious IN
Jury four were taken out dead and five
wounded and the remainder are missing.
Eleven Killed.
Petersburg Va. April This after
noon about O'Clock @an alarm of fire
was turned in soon followed by loud
explosion and in about fifteen minutes
thereafter there was second explosion.
se.explosions were distinctly heard
over a mile and were caused by fire
breakingsout in the fireworks factory of
IN. Romaine & Bros. in Blandford.
They caused the eleven deaths and did
100000 damage to property.
Those killed were Charles N. Romaine
Captain James T. Tosh. John B. Bland
James Rowland, Robert Rowland, Will
liam Traylor, Edward Traylor, James
Bryant, Quincy Livesay. James Nv; Per-
kins and Thomas Voolfolk (colored).
The injured are Edgar Fawley, A. W.
Redgrave, William Parker, Charles Wells,
Charles Short, Walter Nunnally, E. Stith
Beasley, Charles Emery and Samuel
Drewey (colored).