The herald., 1898-11-08
SOME SOAKED CARPETS
MAY EASILY BE REPLACED WITH
NEW ONES
OFFICIAL RECORDS BURNED
Had All Been Printed and the
Originals Were Therefore Chiefly
Valued as Curios
Associated Press Special Wire

Associated Press Special Wire
WASHINGTON, Nov. THE big capitol
building was the scene of wreck and desola'
tion today, following the explosion and fre
which wrought such serious havoc last nlgnt'
The engines and firemen had gone ana IN
their place a small army of workmen was
carving off the debris of brick and mortar,
charred woodwork, soaked and half burned
official papers and documents, which hao
been heaped in confusion in the basement
and sub-basement under the quarters occu-
pied by the United States Supreme Court.
An examination of the court room showed
that the damage was confined to discolored
walls and ceilings and soaked carpets. No
substantial damage had been done. Ihe
bench occupied by the justices was unin-
iured and even the briefs and papers left by
some of the justices under paperweights re-
manned undisturbed.
But while the fire had made no progress
here, some smoke and water had left this
chamber, which has long been regarded as
model of classic beauty, in sorry condition.
The windows and sashes of the old colonial
windows fianking the bench are in ruins.
The frescoed ceiling which recently had been
done over is blurred and spotted, the car
pets and draperies are soaked, while the
whole chamber has the damp, smoked as
pect usually following fire. The personal
effects of the justices, robes, ETC., were found
to be uninjured. The main loss of the court
was in the Marshal's office and in the stor-
age room where valuable old records are
kept. The extent of this last loss is not yet
exactly determined, but the court officials
expect to make critical examination during
the day.
Sergeant-at-Arms Bright Of the Senate,
was busy this morning making temporary
provisions for the sessions of the court. Sen
ator McMillan's committee room, on the
District of Columbia, was hastily prepared
with bench and seats for the justices and
a dozen rows of seats for attorneys and
spectators The quarters are rather cramped
and the Chief Justice and five justices will
have to sit on one side of a long oak table.
Architect Clark, of the Capitol, is ad
vanced in age and is very feeble, so that the
active work of investigating the cause of the
explosion and of clearing away the wreckage
is in the hands of the assistant architect of
the Capitol, Mr.. Wood.
II have made preliminary examination"
Mr.. Wood said today, "and am not yet
ready to say what caused the explosion, al
though the main attention is being given to
the gas supply. l find that general damage
sustained by the building is not as serious as
at first supposed. The heavy foundations to
the building do not appear to be disturbed
and the walls blown down are confined to
the thin encircling walls covering the steam
pipes, etc.
'No heavy sustaining arches or pillars
have given way, so far as l can find out. l
will make fuller examination with better
light later to make certain on these points.
For the present it does not seem that re-
building of any part of the Capitol will be
necessary The work will be that of repair
ing and / hope we can finish this by the
time Congress convenes. We have small
balance for this, but in any event the work
will be done"
An examination of the meter room where
the gas supplied to the Capitol is meas
ured showed that the big meter had been
blown to pieces. This satisfied most of the
Capitol officers that a gas explosion was
for the damage, but they could
not express this view openly until an Off
cial inquiry had been made.
Several supreme court justices made a
visit to the scene during the forenoon.
Chief Justice Fuller and Justice Harlan
walked through the various apartments,
guided by a man with lantern. While
they looked at the scene of destruction with
manifest interest, they made no remarks.
They spent somewhat more time in the
court room than elsewhere. They found
the upholstery and the courts new $4,000
carpet greatly injured, but the two court
clocks were ticking away as regularly and as
as ever. The busts of the for
mer chief justices which line the walls OF
the old chamber were also uninjured, and
this appeared to be source of much graf
ifcation to the chief justice and his COM
panions.
They found nothing but ruin and desola.
tion in Marshal Wright's office. The room
was completely Quilted. No furnitupre es-
capped and the walls of the room are as
black as night, the effects of smoke and fire
and water combined. While this damage
was regretted, it was not considered ire
parable.
The only damage that cannot be made
good was done in the file room of the su-
preme court, in the basement. where were
stored all the official records and the orig
inal copies of opinions from the foundation
of the government. All these opinions
have been printed, but the original manu-.
script was highly valued.
This room was almost over the scene of
the explosion and it was one of the first
apartments of the Capitol to be attacked.
The documents here were stored away in
an orderly manner in wooden cases, and
none of them had any other protection.
except the records of the court from 1892
to 1882, which were encased in tin boxes
The flames appear to have completely en-
veloped this room, but they were only suf-
fciently intense to badly char all the wood
work and many of the documents. Compar-
atively few of the papers were absolutel,
destroyed, but those which suffered this
fate were among the most valuable in the
room. They included the original oninions
of the court in the early days Of the re-
public and among them were many manu-.
scripts prepared in the handwriting of the
jurists of the days of Washington, Jeffer-
son and Adams. There were in the list
many opinions in manuscript written bv
Marshall, Story and Samuel Chase, Bush.