New-York tribune., 1902-02-23

sistance the two women were led TO safety and
he himself escaped. only finally to fall over in
a dazed condition in the corridor of the hotel.
pitiful experience was that of Mrs. Piper,
the wife Of Colonel Alexander Piper He was
found burned to death near the elevator shaft.
She managed to escape and was taken by
friends to the apartments of Mrs. James K.
Hackett, No. 3S East Thirty third-st. She had
been found in the street half dazed and thinly
clad. She did not know of the death of her hus-
band but she believed he had been hurt. Cover
ing with fear she sat in a corner of Mrs Hack
ett's apartments and for a time refused either
medical attendance the assistance Of friends
BY persuasion she was finally induced to go to
bed. and up to late hour in the afternoon she
had not been told of her husbands death as II
was feared that the shock would kill her.
THE DEATH OF MRS. FOSTER.
One of the saddest incidents of the fire was the
death of Mrs. Foster. 1.-The Tombs Angel, who
for fifteen years had performed noble service In
behalf of female prisoners in the Tombs and
other city prisons Her burned body was identi-
fed by her daughter by ring on her finger. on
the inside of which were engraved the words
My own, my DEAR" and the date 1850"
Mrs. Foster a widow. and had Lived
for the last five years at the Park Avenue
Hotel. Her income, which at time con-
sidered large, was for the most part expended
upon the deserving poor
Firemen who went into the hotel at the time
of the fire found great commotion there Peo-
pie were rushing downstairs from the upper
stories, and above were heard cries for help
Some of the firemen went upstairs and helped
people down. Among the persons they took out
of the hotel Bishop Ludden. of Syracuse.
Bishop Ludden told the fremen then that
there were on the fourth floor several other
priests. including Monsignor J. ]. Kennedy, of
Syracuse. Fire Chaplain Walkley returned into
the building. He fought his way through the
smoke and up the stairs to the fourth floor. He
gathered the priests all together from two ad-
joining rooms and had them wrap wet towels
about their heads. He then guided them down
the stairs and through the rotunda into the
Office.
Chaplain Walkley then went back. and at the
head of the fifth stairs he stumbled over the
body of Colonel Alexander Piper. He thought
Colonel Piper had been overcome by smoke.
He picked up the inert body, and best he
could staggered down the stairway to the ro-
tunda When he reached the open air it
found that his burden was the dead body of
Colonel Piper.
FIRE EASILY PUT OUT.
While the work of rescue In the hotel IN
progress the firemen began extinguishing the
flames there. The task was not a difficult one
when lines of hose had been drawn into the
building and the fire confined mostly to the
upper stories of the Fourth-ave and Thirty
third-st. sides of the building. 1t was not until
the flames had been extinguished and the fire.
men could make their way into the burned parts
of the hotel that the number Of dead could be
ascertalned Some of the bodies were identified
at the hotel and others were sent TO the morgue
before they were identified. Several bodies were
taken away from the hotel by undertakers
There was large crowd at the scene of the
fire yesterday. and many persons expressed sur
prise that the flames could have made so much
havoc in a hotel supposed to be freproof. Many
other nearby buildings of fimsier construction
had escaped damage, and between the burned
armory and the hotel mass of scaffoldng
belonging to Major Ira A. Shaler the sub
contractor for the Park-ave. section Of the
rapid transit subway, which had escaped dam
age. It learned that a dozen men
pioyed by Major Shaler had saved the wooden
structure from the flames by organizing a fire
brigade and using buckets to carry water. One
Of the men sent out alarm for the fire in the
armory before policeman discovered the fire.
The crowd that fingered at Park-ave. and
Thirty -fourth-st. all day only the shell Of
the armory building Within the towering walls
of the building remained only heap OF burning
rubbish. From the outside the Park Avenue
Hotel did not appear TO be badly damaged.
survey inside showed that many rooms had
been partly burned out, but Mr.. Reed said the
loss In the hotel by fire would not exceed $4,000