Evening star., 1913-12-03
Scores Taken to Hospital SUI
fering From Injuries and
Others Are Missing.
HOTEL FOR POOR MEN
IN BOSTON DESTROYED
Escape in Some Instances Cut Off by
Locked Doors-Caught in
Crowded Bunks.

BOSTON. December g. Twenty sev er
men We're killed in a fire which swept
through the upper floors of the Arcadia
Hotel. a lodging house in the South End
| early today. Others are missing.
Scores Were taken to hospitals suffer
ing from burns and injuries received In
jumping from windows.
Before the ruins had cooled. two in
vestigations were begun. One was un-
dertaken by the grand jury, who view
ed the scene and prepared TO hear tes-
timony regarding the manner in which
the owners and lessees of the property
had observed the building and fire reg.
ulations
Another probe by the building inspec
ton department of the city was started
under orders from Mayor Fitzgerald
Nearly all the bodies were terribly
burned and mutilated. making identified
ton impossible. The victims We're mer
in poor circumstances who had resorted
to the place for nights lodging Caugh,
i'll the crowded hunks on the top floor
OF the five-story brick building and in
the small rooms on the fourth floor, they
We're helpless. When they were aroused
the stairways were in flames and there
was mad rush for the fire escapes at
the rear. Practically all the men were
naked.
Some of Lodgers Rescued.
Many were rescued by the firemen and
police. Some escaped by walking a shaky
plank stretched to an adjoining building
or by jumping across a five-foot alley
to neighboring roofs. The property loss
is only $4,000. The Arcadia was locate
at the corner of Washington and La
COMA streets. The lower floors were oc-
cupied by stores
The fire apparently started in a hall
way. closet on the street floor The
flames swept up the wooden stairways
and burned through the roof. Acr
clerk. there We're, 17S dodgers in the
building when the fire was discovered
by passing newsbOy. After turning
In an alarm he rushed into the build
Ing. awakening the men, with his
the fourth floor where the loss Of life
was hsaFfest. there Were thirty tiny
rooms. like cells. with two cots in
ter. Nearly all those occupying rooms
on the frOntnof the building perished
The men in the rear rooms. opening on
the fire escape. had, locked the doors
when they went to bed and those In
front were unable to reach the fire
escapes
Three Jump From Roof.
When the firemen arrived flames were
shooting twenty feet in the air from
the windows on the fourth and fifth
floors. and the fire escapes and the roof
nf oh hyfo OF live
humanity. Despite shouts of assur-
from the roof. Two were instantly
killed. The third. who had wrapped a
mattress about himself, escaped with a
few bruises.
Life nets were quickly stretched by the
firemen and many were rescued in this
manner Others were taken down lad
ders. with the flames sweeping about
them The intense heat soon drove the
firemen from their, ladders and made II
necessary to fight the fire from the street
and from the elevated railway structure
running in front of the building.
The fire was in the heart of crowded
tenement and lower class hotel district
Hundreds of occupants of adjoining build
ings rushed to the street when the grea,
quantity Of apparatus called out by three
alarms changed up to their doors. Scores
of excited foreigners crowded about the
in their work. large squad of police
had great difficulty in forcing back the
throng.
Place Uttered With DEAD.
II was nearly an hour after the firelneI
arrived before they We're able to enter
the lodging house. The first man to as
cend "a smoking ladder shouted: My
God, boys, that place is Uttered with
dead" I
Mayor George z. McGrath arrived
shortly afterward and soon was Joined b,
DR. Timothy Leary, associate medical eX'
aminer 1t was gruesome sight as the
bodies were removed In the early dawn
Onlookers turned away as the burned
and mangled bodies We're lowered one by
one to the street and placed in wicker
baskets