Connecticut western news., 1900-07-05
TWO HUNDRED DEAD.
TERRIBLE FIRE ON HoBoKEN WATER
 FRONT.
Three North German Lloyd Liners Burned-Death List VIII Probably Never Be CompIeted-The Property Damage May Exceed Ten Millions.


 Never Be CompIeted-The Property Damage May Exceed Ten Millions. Fire started among cotton bales stored on Pier No. 3 of the North German Lloyd Steamship company in Hoboken at o'clock Saturday afternoon.
 In less than 15 minutes the flames GOV cred an area quarter of a mile long, ex- tending outward from the actual shore line to the bulkheads. from 600 to 1000 feet away, and had caught four great ocean craft in its grasp.
 The queen of the North German Lloyd fleet, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse, was pulled out into the river before she was greatly damaged, but the Bremen, the Saale and the Main were from the first beyond help. The latter was burned at the dock. The former two were tow ed to the Jersey flats, where they now lie in ruins. The hold of each of the three ships was full of firemen, coal passers and sailors, who were roasted to death or drowned.
 Thirty were caught on the piers along side of which the burning vessels were moored and either were suffocated by choking clouds of black smoke. torn to pieces hy explosion or driven to death in the frenzied leap into the swift running tide.
 Careful computation by staff of ex- perts of the North German Lloyd compa- ny places the list of dead in the crews of the three ships destroyed at 142. This does not include any of the longshore men engaged in slowing cargo in the holds of the vessels or the visitors or workers on the piers.
 The list of the missing of these classes will not be complete for several days to come. So far as known now it will not fall short of 75 and may go to 100.
 From now until the interior of the hulls of the Saale, the Bremen and the Main are pumped out, so that they may be explored properly. the recovery of bodies or fragments thereof from any one of these submerged sepulchers will be desultory.
 Complaints Against Tugboats. Fourth Officer Oscar Book and Third Machinist Otto Brockhoff are in charge of the work on the Saale. Both men were aboard during the fire Saturday and are indignant at the treatment accorded them by the tugboat captains whom they asked for assistance while struggling in the water. Book said at least three cap tains wanted to know how much they would pay to be rescued.
 The first formal complaints of alleged cruelty of tugboat captains on the night of the fire were made yesterday by Fritz Heinrich Kruse, third officer of the Saale, and Henry Brocksted, a longshoreman, of 10 Bloomfield street, Hoboken, who both filed affidavits with Recorder Stan ton of the Hoboken police court. Officer Kruse's affidavit is to the effect that the captain of the tug Dandy refused to take him to a place where he might be of some assistance in the work of rescue be- cause he had no money with him.
 Afidayits corroborating that of Officer Kruse were filed by Rudolph Grahn, physician on the Phnnicia, and Christo- pher Gerkens and Oscar Heuntechel, stewards on the Phpnicia.
 That any large number of visitors ei- ther to the piers or the ships were lost Is not probable, but figured out to its ulti- mate there is no system of calculation by which this particular estimate can be made. Averages are not possible. The differences are so great on different days and on different ships that mean is not obtainable.
 The officers of the Bremen are authori- ty for the statement that there were full ly POO visitors on board that vessel when the fire broke out, majority of them women, and that to escape death on the blazing pier many took to boat lowered after the alarm was given, and the boat was capsiZed.
 How many persons were in it, how many escaped or how many perished can only be conjectured.
 The Property Loss.
 The property loss will fall not far short of S10,000000. and this estimate is as conservative as the estimate of the loss of life. Not until the adjusters get to work and figure out the cost of replacing what has been lost can the value of the food fed to the flames be reckoned with exactitude.
 The Saale, with her horrible sepulcher below decks, is a total loss. Her warped and blackened hull is all that is left of her. The Main, the great freighter of the line. is in n plight almost as bad as her sister ship. and the Bremen is dam aged to the extent of S70O,oO0. All this is outside of cargo and stores.
 The docks of the North German Lloyd company are no longer docks. They have been wiped out of existence com pletely. The piers that formed their boundaries are forest of charred spiles and bent and twisted iron. Every pound of freight on the piers was destroyed.
 
 Thingvalla line there is nothing now but an expanse of water and a few charcoal topped spiles.
 The loss of Palmer Campbelrs ware house, within the inclosure occupied by the steamship companies, would have been matter of moment under other circumstances. Its destruction on Satur- day night, involving a loss of $2,500, 900, was only an incident when a score of men were struggling in the waters of the Hudson and shrieking for aid from be- meath the burning piers.
 The United States bonded warehouse, filled from floor sill to gable with bar reled spirits, escaped the fate of the Campbell warehouse. Around it the flames swept in frantic shape, but only the walls were heated and scorched.
 President Appoints Cadets.
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