The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1905-03-15
LOSS OF LIFE DUE TO NEGLIGENCE
FIRE ESCAPES cLoeGED RY RUB.
BIsH AND skYLIGHT DOOR
FASTENED TIGHT.

New York, March 15.-At least a
score of persons were burned to death
several were so badly hurt that they
may die and forty others received
slighter hurts in a fire that practically
destroyed a five-story tenement house
in Allen street early in the day The
fire had gained great headWay before
it became known to most of the ten
ants and many Of them were cut off
before they could make an attempt to
save themselves Thrilling rescues
and daring leaps for life marked the
fire: Scores were carried from the
blazing building. Firemen climbed
the walls on their scaling ladders,
braved the flames and reached the i'm
perilled tenants.
Crowded fire escapes in the rear of
the tenement house were largely re
sponsible for so many deaths and in
juries among its population, which ap,
preached 200 souls. Another cause of
the terrible loss of life was negligence
in failing to keep the skylight door
free and clear. It was not only fas-
tened tight, but also frozen.
The scenes about the building after
the fire was over and when the search
for the dead was begun We're heart
rending. Nothing so pitiful Of such
proportions has been seen in New. Y York
since the Slocum disaster, when a
thousand persons, nearly all Of them
women and children, lost their lives.
Explosion Cause of the Fire.
The fire started in the basement,
occupied by Isaac Davis, his wife and
three children, and was caused by the
explosion of a kerosene lamp. Davis
and his wife attempted to put out the
fire but failed. A policeman who
heard the cry of alarm rushed to the
scene and every effort was made to
arouse. the sleeping persons in the
house.
In the meantime the flames had
spread with startling rapidity and
when the persons who had been asleep
on the upper floors aWoke they found
O1tSuz sDyEsci w di1 VI
flames on nearly every side.
Scenes of the widest description
followed. Panic stricken people, fight
ing for their lives, rushed to the fire
escapes only to find them Uttered with
rubbish OF all descriptions and almost
impassable Down through this mar
row passa geWay followed streams Of
people On some escapes the rubbish
was so closely packed that it became
impossible to pass certain points and
men, women and children stood liter
ally roasting to death as the flames
roared through windows around them.
Heroic Policeman Badly Injured.
One Of the escapes, which ended
near the roof of shed about twenty
feet above the ground, had been
manned by Policeman John j. Dwan,
who had run plank across to the win
dow Of an adjoining building. Nearly
a dozen persons had been carried
across this narrow bridge by the po-
iceman when the flames began to
sweep around the lower end of the tire
escape Rushing into the fire the po-
liceman seized little child and start
ed on the last return trip across to
the place of safety. He had made only
half the distance when the plank,
burned more than half through, broke
where it rested on the fire escape and
the rescuer and rescued fell TO the
stone paved yard twenty feet below.
The man struck fairly on his back
and one Of his shoulders was shattered
by the force of the fall. The child
was uninjured.
In the meantime the firemen had run
up ladders at other points and many
people were being taken from the
crowded fire escapes and upper win
dows. BY this time the building was a
furnace and the rescues were effected
in many cases only after the greatest
show OF bravery on the part of the
iremen.
Girl Gives Way to Little Brother.
Heroes developed at this time. Lieu
tenant Bonner, son of the former fire
chief, ascended the now redhOt fire
escapes five times, each time coming
down with a woman or child in his
arms.
. AS Bonner reached fourth story
window on one Of his ascents and
dragged a little girl from window
where she stood surrounded by flames
she pleaded with him to leave her on
the escape and go in after her little
brother. whom she had carried to the
window He had fallen unconscious
and was roasting, she said. Bonner
jumped through the window and it
seemed to those below as If he was
going into a furnace. He found the
little boy just inside the window and
carried him out.
As the fire progressed the above
scenes were repeated at other fire
escapes and at windows on all sides
of the building The identified dead
are: Rachael Solomon, aged forty-five
years; Jacob Solomon, sixteen; Isaac
Solomon, eighteen; Jessie Cohen, fif-
teen: Rose Wiener, tWenty- three; San
der Wiener, four: Ida MuskoWitz, ten;
Harry Kaufman, ten; Rose Miller,
four; Sarah Kline, sixty; Bella Sled.
Ter, thirty, Harry Siedier, eleven: