The morning call., 1894-07-07
TROOPS HURRIED TO THE SCENE
1t Is Expected That Orders viii
Be Given to Shoot to
Kill Now.

lawless hprdes of firebugs are at work at
score OF points in the south half Of
Chicago. Fires are raging in every direc-
tion among the numerous railroad yards,
hundreds of cars and tens OF thousands of
dollars worth Of merchandise have gone
I'D in smoke or been carried off by the now
freuzled mob of rioters. Incendiarism is
rampant, alarm after alarm has followed
10 Quick succession all day, and tonight at
II O'Clock the glare reflected from the
heavens shows that the dsorderly pastime
continues unabeted
From early morning until this hour
(midnighO reports of fresh fires followed
each other with startling rapidity, being
confined, however. principally to railroad
rolling stock and buildings, against which.
thus far, the greatest part of the mob's
fury has been directed.
Early this morning a blaze started
among some overturned cars at Kensing-
TOD. Quichly communicating to other
tracks filled with long lines of cars, many
containing valuable merchandise. Fires
were soon raging furiously. famed by
strong winds. There is at this point
total of eighty cars wiped out At the
stockyards one blaze after another was re-
ported, aud from the outlying districts
came urgent calls for engines and police
protection, Increasing in frequency.
But with the falling shades of night
came the climax of the fiery festival. The
Panhandle yards, from Fifty-ffth to
Sixty-third street. are on fire. The tracks,
containing from 1000 to 1000 cars. half OF
them loaded, will be a total loss. No
water being at hand. the fire must burn
itself out. The Panhandle station at
Sxty-third street was also fred and de-
stroyed.
The Grand Trunk yards at Elston is
sea Of fame. Five hundred bOxcars are
supposed to have been burned. and efforts
10 check the flames nave been futile.
While directing the movements of the
Eleventh Battalion at Fifty first street
Fire Marshal Fitzpatrick was seized by
the thoroughly frenzied mob of frebugs
and thrown into a pond, from which he
was rescued by the police more dead than
alive. Everything at this point will prob
ably be a total loss.
At HYDE Park, near the Worlds Fair
grounds. the ashes Of forty cars are now
smoldering, and word has just come in
that, after numerous efforts, the mob has
succeeded in firing the Illinois Central
shops at Burnside.
At the stockyards tonight about fifty
OF
were skulking from point to point and set
large number of fires. Their methods
were thoroughly unique. Loading several
: handcars with buckets of waste and oil
they would glide around among the cars
in the darkness. lighting wads of the stuff.
q which would be thrown into the open
doors of the cars as they passed by them.
Fires sprung up on every hand and no or
:ganized effort on the part of the police
seemed to be under way to intercept them.
This is the banner district of the city if
notof the entire county for all-around
tgughs and it is as much as a mans life is
worth TO interfere with them.
Troops are hurrying south, and COM
pany after company on heavy marching
order is moving to the turbulent district
from the center of the city. The aggre-
gate of the losses of the railroads will be
enormous. Miles of their tracks have
been ruined by the fierce heat, and hum
dreds of switch and signal towers with
their expensive mechanism utterly ruined.
Thousands of cars and untold quantities
of merchandise of every imaginable de-
scription have fed the flames and gorged
the larders Of thieves; valuable locomo-
tives have been wrecked and disabled;
miles of tangled wires and PROSTATE poles
litter the ground.
Telephone, telegraph, electric light and
fire alarm wires are now the special OBJ
iect of attack, and the plugging Of fire.
alarm boxes, constituting a new and
deubly dangerous element in the tremen-
dous wave of incendiarism sweeping over
the southwest portion Of the city prevent
ing, as it does, notice being received OF
the starting of fires, until, with the poor
water supply in these outlying districts.
fire has attained such headway that it can
not be stopped except through lack of
further material on which to feed.
The maddened mobs, ow worked up to
the highest pitch OF fury, are paralleling
the scenes of the Commune, and at this hour
it appears as though nothing short of the
miraculous can prevent an armed demon
stration against them and the sacrifice of
many lives.
The first detachment of the National
Guard reached Kenoington at $50 O'Clock.
The train ran around to Riverdale, where
a company was left on guard. and then re-
turned to KeDsington. Here the town
seemed full of people and there were evil
dently many strangers.
The people lined up along the tracks
where the troops were leaving the cars, and
the citizen soldiers were received with
shouts of derision and disparaging cries.
There was no offer of violence, however.