The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1903-04-15


brea thless crowd
I hat now blackened
! : every housetop and
t- choEed Bowen street
With mass Of up
turned white faces touched with the
glow of ere it seemed as If the COM
pany was unusually slow. Before the
ladders had reached perpendicular,
before they had tre1nbled, swayinS
over toward the building, a dozen faces
appeared at the upper windows beside
the child with her charge, beckoning
frantically for help.
See! See there Barton cried again
with the same nervous tension which
he had shown since leaving his roons.
: figure leaped out Of the upper win
dow, whirled over twice, striking the
upper extension Of the ladders, and fell
into the street. The crowd groaned.
\ second figure stood out on . WINDOW
sill and, throwing up its arms, with
shrlu cry more beastly than human,
flung itself out toward the ladders now
leaning over toward the building. 1t
was a woman. She actually touched
one Of the ladder rounds with her I'm
gers and for second the crowd
thought she had grasped it, but for
only a second. The body shot down
ward, and Barton and Gordon closed
their eyes and invoiuntarily put their
hands up over their ears to shut out the
horrible sound Again the crowd
groaned, and Wild beast yell arose.
The life blanketr' some one shrek
ed. end it was only after the whole
thing was history that Bowen street
learned that owing to the narrow
courts and the broken pavements the
department was fatally hlndered IN all
its movements and. the wagon carrying
the life blanket had overturned at
corner, killing the driver and manning
one Of the horses so that it had to be
shot. Make out another indictment for
murder against municipality which
deliberately robs the people Of its
rights in order to keep the wheels OF
the political machine moving. What
are human lives compared with the
spoils OF office and the plunder that is
part of political service to the powers
that be?
The ladder fell over and touched the
window sill where the child Of the
tenements was standing with her bur-
den. and then a scene occurred that
will never leave John Gordon as long
as he tolls on bearing human woes on
his brave and bleeding heart.
The child suddenly disappeared, and
in her place could be seen two men and
woman fighting like wild beasts for
the first chance az the ladder which
rested on the sill. 4 fireman was climb
ing up and had almost reached the
maddened fighters. At the other WIN
dows wild, imploring faces begged in
agony fer life. Two more forms We're
seen to jump from the windows at the
corner fartheSt from the ladder. Ihe
fire was now bursting through the roof,
and one group, from the window next
the fighters above the ladder fell back
as ii floor had given way-all this in
the few seconds it took to be burned
into Gordon with awful detail-when he
saw the ladder rise to a perpendicular
as if some giant hand had pushed it
back. It rose until it stood straight, the
solitary figure OF the fireman silhouet-
ted against the blazing wall, and then
the ertire front of the house, with q
roar that gathered volume in q sicken-
Inc rush of death, fell over into the
street, burying in one mingled mass the
fireman who had been standing on the
ladder, his companion at the foot and
the crowd in the street that, caught in
q trap, could not escape even II there
had been time 10 give warning Of the
danger.
For one awful second Gordon and
Barton, Who had been standing just
outside the reach Of the falling wall,
looked into the blazing interior of the
tenement. Figures within that roaring
furnace leaped down into it from floors
and window ledges. Others jumped in
to the street They looked like great
insects leaping into jets Of flame. Then
with deafening crash the remaining
side walls fell inward The rear wall
remained standing FOR a minute, then
swayed and crashed backward upon
the lower buildings behind, where at
once fire broke out in dozen places.
To the friends It seemed as if the air
suddenly filed with Groans. With aD-
peals, with cries that We're like curses,
like walls Of spirits that had been de-
MED all earthly happiness and by the
greed Of selfish man had now been CON
signed to endless torments in the
other world, there to be subject to the
furies' rage, to tie ceaselcss suffering
that earth had begun and hell existed
to perpetuate.
And oh, for you, little child Of the
terements. Nameless heroine, crushed
into shaneless form Of horror, sui
faithful to your charge, both going
down together into that grave OF tire,
who shall deliver your eulogy, who
shall rear your monument: t'or one
among those who ieaped into the street
lived long enough to tell your story
and to say that you ran back into the
burning building to warn sleeping IN
mates and then was Sr2tchcd away
from the window, from the only place
of possible rescue. by the very men and
women wake2ed out Of suffocatinG
death. r there is reward or conpea-