The San Francisco call., 1898-07-31
OREGON HOUSE
 4 FIRE TRAP Depraved and Vicious Were It's Patrons. ROOMS WERE ONLY BOXES FIVE VICTIMS HAVE BEEN FULLY IDENTIFIED. Injured Survivors, With One Excep- tion, Are Out of nger-Morbid
 Crowd Visits the
 Morgue.
ROOMS WERE ONLY BOXES
FIVE VICTIMS HAVE BEEN
 FULLY IDENTIFIED.

Tn all probability the five unfortunates who perished in the fire and smoke at the Oregon lodging house night before last never realized that death was upon them when they groped blindly and sleepily for an exit from the fire trap in which they lodged. It was a ten-cent Logging house, patronized only by outcasts, the moral and physical derelicts of Barbary Coast and the water front. Occasionally, perhaps, an honest laborer, with but dime left, would seek shelter there for single night, but he would never return second time. For the past five years the place has been known to the police as rendezvous for morphine and opium fiends, vagrants and drunkards of both sexes, and when the fire broke out nearly all were in a drunken stupor or dazed by drugs. One of the survivors, whose in- juries may yet prove fatal Illustrates this. He says he heard a racket for sey- eral minutes before he got out of his bunk, but thought nothing of 1t. Then he heard the cracking of the flames and noticed the odor of smoke, and thinking some thing was wrong got up and went to the window He saw the fire pouring out of the open hall door and started to go downstairs. Opening his door he was en- gulfed in flames. but he ran through to the rear end of the hall on to the porch and Jumped into the back yard. He managed to drag himself out of there and was sent to the Harbor Hospital.
 The building was Veritable death trap, with only a narrow stair leading to the street. The two upper floors. about toxo0 feet, had been partitioned off into boxes which were called rooms. There were fourteen of these on each floor, and ttie dilapidated beds, the only furniture In them, occupied all the space; Lodg2rs were evidently expected to bring their own bedding or sleep In their wearing ap- parel. The ground floor was occupied by Chinese fruit and vegetable peddlers as storeroom and sleeping apartment. It is supposed a lamp exploded down stairs, and the dry wood was soon af1arne. In another instant the fire reached the stairway and shot upward, shutting off the only exit from the lodging house.
 The damage 10 the building is not very great, the fire having been confined to the railways. The doors to the sleeping rooms were burned and the inmates were suffocated while they slept or burned to death in endeavoring to get down the stairs.
 Charles Holmes, the crippled newspaper room. He lay partially under the bed. In the debris yesterday near the door his broken, indicating that he had made fran tie efforts to escape a fiery death.
 such buildings as the one burned and has given the fire department endless trouble by constantly violating the fire ordinances, is the owner of the shack. He bought 1t several years ago and immediately con verted it into a cheap lodging house. Gu neo has already made preparations to re- new the partitions in the house. It was built about forty years ago and at one time was a popular boarding house under the management of John Hogan. Hogan sold out and went into the insurance bus mess. Cuneo had no insurance on the property. probably because no company would write policy on 1t.
 Edward M: Kennedy, one of the injured who was taken to the Harbor Receiving Hospital, has only one leg. He was asleep on the top floor when aroused by the cry of Fire" He opened his door and dashed toward the stairs without waiting to get his wooden peg which he usually wore. In going down the stairs he fell headlong into the flames. but he managed to hobble to the rear porch and let himself down a ladder into the. back yard, where he was found by the f1remen He had no cloth covered with an old quilt until the am- bulance came and took him to the hos pital. Kennedy Is very badly burned about the body and his injuries may prove fatal. He and John King, whose burns are also