Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1903-11-05
MANY PERISH IN FIRE
HOLOCAUST IN A NEW YORK
TENEMENT HOUSE.
s'sort Time Of Blaze Remarkable for
Its Serious consequ ences-Evi-
dence to Show 1t Was of Incendiary
oriain-Property Loss is Small.

New York, Nov. 2.-Twenty-one
men, three women and ten months
old babe were burned to death or suf-
| located in fire that started IN a
building known as the House of All
| Nations" because of the different ma
tionalities of it's tenants, at 426 Elev.
enth avenue, which the police and cor
oner believe to be of incendiary or
| igin. Some peculiar features of the
disaster, in addition to the startling
loss of life, are that the fire was prac-
tically extinguished in twenty mill
| utes, 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.
The dead, who are mostly Italians
are: Giuseppe Rossi, Anotonio Rossi,
Justine Rossi, Nicholas Nogal, Pietro
Reresi, Antonio Brocera, M. Vingig-
uerro, Antonio Villmo, Frances Vilmo,
Sarah O'Toole Antonio, D'Angelo,
Pasqual Narcotic, Frank Mastreni,
Mattio Vrendo, Jose Mastrim. Pietro
Donyski, Joseph, Zorowitch, Frank
Delmonio, Antonio Berolich, Antonio
Berolich, Antonio Uclillini, Giuseppi
Cappelli, Baby Dresi and three uniden-
titled Italian laborers.
The only person injured, so far as
can be learned, is Mary Quinn, who
was burned about the face and hands
and severely bruised by leaping from
a second-foor fire escape to the pave
ment.
The fire had been burning some
minutes before it was discovered. 1t
had started in the basement and, rush
ing upward, had attacked the stair
way leading to the apartments. In a
short space of time the flames had so
enveloped the stairway that egress
from the building by it was impossi-
BILE. The house from the third to the
fifth floor was destroyed. At the win
dows, front and rear, bodies of men
and women were damned, showing
that a desperate struggle to get free
had resulted in the choking of these
exits to the fire escapes and had been
the cause of number of inmates to
be suffocated. Lying on bed beside
window at, the rear of the fourth
floor the iremen found the bodies Of
five men. Each had clutched the one
next to him in an endeavor to push
him away in order to get to the fire
escape outside. The features of the
men were distorted, some with rage,
others with agony, and in two in
stances the men had gripped each
other so hard that blood had been
drawn and had run over their hands.
When the firemen reached the scene
there was mass of flame bursting
| through the middle of the roof, while
I. the air.wa filled with heart-rending
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
writing human beings struggling in
vain efforts to reach safety from the
crowded fire escapes. One fireman
. crawled to the fourth floor, where
window was filled with mass of peo-
pie, damned in and fighting to get out.
He struck the heads of all the men
he could see with his fist and they fell
back. He then handed down to the
fremen on ladders below three wom-
en- and baby.
Life nets played a prominent part
in the work of rescue 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
retH