The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-11-02
MANY DEAD in
TENEMENT FIRE.
Twenty-Five Persons Lose Their
Lives in a New York City
Fire Trap.
Firemen Do Heroic Rescue Work
and Life Nets Are Called
into Use.

New York, Nov. 2.--TWenty-One
men, three women and a ten-months-
old babe were burned to death or suf-
located in a fire that started early
yesterday morning in the House Of All
Nations, a five-story tenement build
ing at APO Eleventh avenue, and which
the police and coroner believe-to have
been Of incendiary origin.
Some of the peculiar features Of the
loss of life, are that the fire was prac-
losss 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 prop
erty loss was only $1,000. The dead
are mostly Italians.
In several apartments in the tene-
ment Halloween parties were in prog
ress, 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 1t would or
dinarily have been. Altho pIentifully
provided with fire escapes, front and
rear, escape here was cut off a few
bodies of the dead becoming Wedged
In the openings leading to the ladders.
The fire had been burning for some
minutes before it was discovered, It
started IN the basement, and, rushing
upward, attacked the stairway leading
to the apartments. In a short space
81 time the flames had so enveloped
building by It was impossible. The
house from the third to the fifth floor
was entirely destroyed. At the win
doWs, front and rear, bodies of men
and women were damned, showing
that desperate struggle to get free
had resulted in the complete choking
or these exits to the fire escapes and
had been the cause Of number Of
the inmates being suffocated.
Fought Their Rescuers.
When the fremen reached the scene
thru the middle of the roof, while the
air was filled with heartrending
screams of the women and the curses
OF the men. Many daring rescues
were made by the firemen, who at
times had to use violence in their at
tempts to disentangle the mass Of
Wrtthing human beings struggling in
vain efforts to reach safety from the
crowded fire escapes. One fireman
climbed to the fourth floor, where a,
window was filled with mass of peo-
pie, damned in and fighting to get out.
He struck with his fist the heads Of all
the men ne could see, and they fell
back. He then handed down to the
f1remen on ladders below three women
and a baby. Another fireman per-
formed a similar feat and rescued two
girls from the fourth floor
/. Life nets played a prominent part
in the work Of resue. The firemen
dropped men and women, dead and
alive. from one floor to another, and
finally the men standing on ladders on
the first floor let them fall into the
nets held by policemen and flremen
in the street. -
Not Incendiary.
That the fire was probably acct
dental In origin and not incendary as
was at first believed was determined
by Fire Marshal Freel, who said to-
day that after investigation he had
come to the conclusion that the cause
was accidental.
He said that he learned that the
tenants were in the habit of going to
the woodshed where the fire started
at all hours of the night to chop wood,
and that 1t was customary for the men
to smoke while they chopped. This
led the fire marshal to think that the
IRE was probably caused by some one
accidentally dropping a match into
some inf1ammable material