The Savannah morning news., 1904-02-13
FIRE AS A SPECTACLE.
A FEATURE OF THE BALTIMORE
CONFEDERATION.

pressed by the Theatrical Appear
ance of the Flames and Ruins.
Local Pride of the Citizens shown,
Even in the Hour of Dire Gu
lamity.
From the New York Post.
Washington, Feb. "A great con-
flagration without death roll cannot
fail to impress the observer by its spec
tacular rather than it's tragic aspects.
At Baltimore there were none of the
heartrending scenes that ACCOMPANIED
such a disaster as that of Hoboken,
where sailors were burned to death
with their faces at the narrow port
holes of the ships, and the water but
d few feet beneath them. The COM
ments which one heard on the streets
were often quantity phrased, bringing
out unconsciously the peculiar point of
view from which the common people of
Baltimore, those who have not them
selves suffered loss of property or en-
ployment, regarded the disaster.
You know this is unusual for Bal.
tinore." said one old burgher to a WIS.,
itor who stood beside him looking at
the ruins. 1t was precisely the phrase
he would probably have used If the
civic authorities had prepared a fire.
works display of unexampled splendor.
The very impossibility of grasping the
real magnitude of the citys calamity
helped to emphasize the theatrical as
poets of the situation. The tract de-
vastated was so vast that one who had
arrived after the flames had done their
work felt that it could not possibly
be real-that it must be all a magnifi-
cent counterfeit. 1T was a great trib-
ute to the scene painter said a Wash
ingtonian who made a flying trip to
Baltimore on Monday evening. II had
seen number of reproductions on the
stage of great CONGREGATIONS, like THE
Last Days of Pompeii, The Destruc-
ton of Rome and The Heart of Chi
cago, but l never realized how truth
fully they had pictured those scenes
OF flaming desolation. If YOU ask
what Baltimore looks like to-day, l
could not answer you better than by
telling you to go and see one of those
great stage spectacles.
Il climbed last night to the roof of
the Court House, where l could over
look the whole burned area. 1t was
all exactly like a panorama; the walls,
with their skeleton windows, might
have been painted on canvas, and the
red lights that threw their wild shad-
ows might have come from magnesi-
UNI powder.
There were dozens of trivial cir
cumstances that bore out this i'm
preston. In one tall building, for in
stance, all the brick and stone work
above the first three stories had fallen
except one corner, which stood all
by itself like a spindling chimney Of
irregular outline. 1t was hard to be-
lieveh that such a slender and weak
structure could have escaped being top
pied over by mere force of the wind,
and I can't imagine now why it did
not fall when the rest of the walls
went over. 1t was just the sort of
grotesque shape that a scenic artist
would cut out of canvas and support
with a framework, but that bricks and
mortar should assume such form
seemed incredible.
Then again, little patches of fire
were left in such strange places. In
one of the upper stories of a complete
ly Quilted f1rescraper was what looked
like bonfire, burning away quietly
some twenty-four hours after every
other combustible article had been con-
sumed. g Out of the middle of a pile of
dead, blackened debris in one corner
of a ruined building arose steady
bright yellow flames, that must have
been burning all night and all day with
apparently nothing but bricks and
IJOllcm " leu Olls AL lHCSC llliISS
seemed to me like nothing but gas
mans tricks. Then, the background
of the PICTURE the gray clouds, occa-
sionally lighted from behind or rolling
away for moment to show an endless
succession of roofless buildings, would
be the easiest thing in the world for a
stage manager to arrange with few
red-light globes, steam pipe, and
some painted canvas. 1t was a Won
dQrfIl CiObf hIYt the Whnla Gnrnatinfa
was that of taking an excursion to- see
the shows, of some gigantic Midway
Plaisance.
'"rhen, local pride. so intense that it
demands that even local calamities
shall exceed those of other cities. was
not absent from the minds of the Bal
timoreans. l walked down to the rail-
way station with a young man who had
been fighting the fire necessarily at the
docks of the company with which he
held a position. and this was his ac-
count of the affair. The Chicago fire
was not a patch beside this one. What
did they have out there thirty years
ago to burn. anyway? Frame build
ings, low and cheaply constructed; for
that was before the day of substantial
edifices depending upon elevators for
getting up and down. i believe one
of our buildings, like the sixteen-story
Continental Trust. was worth more
than an average four blocks of the
Chicago fire. When the figures are to-
talled-and you know the Chicago es-
Inmates were much inflated, so insur-
ance men tell me, because the Chica-
goans of that day had an eye out for
sensational advertising-it will be found
that our loss was by far the worst.
But our loss here in Baltimore is
nothing to what it would have been
if our fire department were at all like
that of other cities. 1t seemed to me
as If the whole New York department.
could not put one fair-sized Baltimore
fire. The methods of the New York.
ers are so different from those of our
own men that It is impossible to COM
pare them except to say that the New
York fireman looks out for a good
place where he can stand and shoot his
hose at the fire; the Baltimore fireman
goes right in after it. Our men push
their way into buildings, in order to
throw their energies where they will do
most good. The New Yorker is all
right, but his idea seems to me to- be
that of long-range artillery.
"In regard to the reports that no
lives have been lost, 1 desire to say
that while we all wish that it might
be true, no reasonable man can be-
1ieve IT. How does any one know that