River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-11-05
LOSS OF LIFE
IS STARTLING
Crowded Tenement House in New
York Burns.
ESCAPE OF INMATES CUT Off
Desperate Struggle for Life Follows
Twenty-Five Persons Either
SuffOcated or Burned
to Death.


New York, Nov. 2.-Twenty-one men,
three women and ten months old babe
were burned to death or suffocated in
a fire that started early Sunday morning
in the House of All Nations, five-story
tenement house at No. 426 Eleventh
avenue, and which the police and coro-
ner believe to have been of incendiary
origin. Some of the peculiar features of
the disaster, in addition to the startling
loss of life, are that the fire was prac-
tically extinguished in twenty minutes,
that the police could learn of but
one person being injured, other than
those who lost their lives, and that the
property loss was only $1,000. Most OF
the dead are Italians. The only person
injured, so far as can be learned, is
Mary Jane Quinn, AZ years old, who
was burned about the face and hands
and severely bruised by leaping from
the second floor fire escape to the
ground.
Escape Cut OF.
In several apartments in the tenement
Halloween parties were in progress and
the guests at these added greatly to the
number of persons in the house and
made the crush and jam to escape more
than it ordinarily would have been.
Although plentifully provided with fire
escapes, front and rear, escape here was
cut off a few minutes after the fire
- ~
coming wedged in the openings leading
to the ladders. The fire had been burn
ing for some minutes before it was dis
covered 1t had started in the basement
and, rushing upward, had attacked the
stairway leading to the apartments. In
a short space of time the flames had sc
enveloped the stairway that egress from
the building by it was impossible. The
house from the third to the fifth floor
was entirely destroyed.
Struggle for Life.
At the windows, front and rear
bodies of men and women were
damned, showing that a desperate
struggle to get free had resulted in the
complete choking of these exits to the
fire escapes and had been the cause Of
number of the inmates being suffo'
Gated. Lying on a bed alongside 8
window at the rear of the fourth floor
the firemen found the bodies of 1--WE
men. Each had clutched the one mex
to him in an endeavor to push him
away in order to get to the fire escape
o,,tCido Tho foo +uroc re tho MON wore
distorted, some with rage, others with
agony, and in two instances the meT
had gripped each other so hard that
blood had been drawn and had run
over their hands. On the third floor
was found the bodies of Maculeta Vim
giguerro and her baby. The mother
had crawled to the front window and
had succeeded in grasping the sill
when she was suffocated In her arms
lay the body of her child.
Daring Rescue.
When the firemen reached the scene
there was mass of flame bursting
through the middle of the roof, while
the air was filled with heartrendins
screams of the women and the curses
of the men. Many daring rescues were
made by the firemen, who at times ha(
to use violence in their attempts to dis
entangle the mass of writhing human
beings struggling in vain efforts tt
reach safety from the crowded fire es
capes. One fireman climbed. to the
fourth floor, where window was filled
with a mass of people, damned in anC
fighting to get out. He struck the
heads of all the men he could see with
his fist, and they fell back. He ther
handed down to the firemen on ladders
below three women and baby. An
other fireman performed similar feat
and rescued two girls from the fourth
floor. Life nets played prominent
part in the work of rescue. The fire.
men dropped men and women, dead
and alive, from one floor to another
and finally the men standing on lad
ders on the first floor let them fall
into the nets held by policemen and
firemen in the street.
The building was known as "The
House of all Nations" because of The
different nationalities of it's tenants.