The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-08

Baltimore, Feb. '. - The fire which broke out @ few minutes before Il o'clock this morning in the wholesale dry goods house of John B. Hurst & O., has ragged with unrestrained fury continuously ever since and at mid night it is still unchecked but is stead fly eating it's consuming way eastward on Baltimore street, after having de- stroyed almost all of the large stores and warehouses in the wholesale dis trict around Hopkins Place and all the buildings on both sides of Baltimore street from Howard to Holiday street, from Charter and Baltimore to Charles and Lexington and on Fayette street from Charles to Holiday, including total of about twenty blocks of the most modern and substantial business buildings in Baltimore, involving loss which cannot now be estimated, but which has certainly already reached. thirty or forty millions of dollars.
 Ever since about o'clock when darkness set in the fire department all though aided by engines from Wash ington, Philadelphia, Wilmington and the surrounding counties and suburbs has been utterly powerless to make any impression on the all-devour- ing element though for hours as many as 400 streams of water were thrown into the flames. Indeed So terrific has been the heat ever since the fire start ed and so dense and suffocating the vol unie of flying sparks and burning cin- ders that it was difficult for the fire men to stand long within fighting dis tance of the flames, while several trucks and engines were hopelessly dis afied at af1 early hour iii the action. At o'clock the situation was so hopeless so far as effective work by the firemen was concerned that Chief Horton de- cided that the only thing left to do was to dynamite buildings at threatened points and thus prevent as far as pos sible further spread of the flames. In pursuance of this plan a number of buildings on South Charles street be- tween German and Lombard were blown up. Subsequently the splendid \ structure of J. w. Putts & Co.,, notion callers at Charles and Fayette streets, vas dynamited and then the Daily Record building, Ross drug store and others. But this heroic remedy merely delayed but did not seriously impede the onward march of the confagration and for two hours or more the fire de- partment has stood practically helpless and resourceless in the face of the roaring furnaces which send their fierce tongues two hundred feet into the air, and which filled the heavens first with a pail of black funeral smoke and then with liyid sheets of sparks and lurid cinders.
 Following the rapid destruction of the palatial commercial buildings in the wholesale district the cyclone of roar ing flames burst into Baltimore street, licking within few minutes the seven story Mullins hotel like some insatiate monster and rapidly rolling with ire sistible force both eastward and west ward. cutting down in it's wrathful wake wholesale and retail houses, man. ufactories, shops, jewelry stores, furni- ture emporiums and restaurants. At Charles street, the remorseless tide kept on down Baltimore street. but also turn ed into Charles street. when it quickly engulsed the eleven story Union Trust building, starting eastward on Fayette street. By o'clock the occupants of the Daily Herald building at Fayette and St. Paul streets and of the Record building opposite were compelled to va cate, as were the occupants of the Cal vert and Equitable structures. two of the most massive office buildings in Baltimore. Down Baltimore street, a parallel wave of roading, cracking flames shot their way consuming every thing in it's wake, speedily reaching the Evening News building, from which number of extra editions were issued during the preceding hours, but from which the employees had to hastily flee, though not until valuable records had been removed. Shortly after. the Con- tinental Trust company's fourteen story building took fire A block below the American Newspaper building was so enveloped in clouds of sparks and burning splinters that the employees were ordered to more uot. So at this iiOul " lo CClL llAeil SAiC llCAcliA e1Au American will not get out issues to- morrow. Meanwhile the Sun has been arranging to print it's to-morrow's issue in it's job office, which is situated vat a distant point from the path of the fire, The financial district, including the chief banking and the brokerage firms on South and German streets, seems to be now doomed, and scores of the city's leading finaneiers and business men are scurrying in and out of their offices bearing packages or placing valuables in hastily imiprovised eonveyances.
 During all these hours the pyrotech- mic display has been magnificent and imposing beyond the power of painter