Evening star., 1924-10-12
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

In The Star of Monday, October ;.
1874, is summary of the verdict of
the coroner's jury in the case Of the
fire at Fall River, Mass, which cost
Verdict on the Fire follows:
of Foil Ri1er The jury finds
WI that the fire de-
partment were as promptly on hand
as could be expected from the confusion
of the alarm caused by striking four
different boxes at about the same time,
but that the hooks and ladders in
cluded in the fire department were in
sufhcient in an emergency of this kind
and were poorly handled on this occa-
sion. The many reports concerning
other branches of the department are
unfounded. 1t is apparent that due
caution was not used in giving the
alarm to persons a work in the sixth
story. Had such alarm been given and
care indicated been taken, the lives of
all the persons in that story might have
been saved. notwithstanding there was
but one escape therefrom, viz, the
tower stairs. = And had even the male
operatives in that story not become
anic-stricken at the first alarm of fire
that reached them, they might have led
all the women and children in their
y
The evidence shows that all the ap-
pliances for extinguishing fire in all the
stories, such as tanks, pumps and pipes,
and horizontal pipes and hose in vari-
Gus rooms, were in this mill apparently
ready for use on the morning of the
fire, but water was wanting in them
and the hose and pipes were useless in
the fourth story at this time.
'It was proved conclusively that
nj of
from the attic. Had there been such
the loss of life would have been avoid
ed, and we (the jurorS) now suggest
as an additional means of safety and
escape that in case of fire it should
be so arranged that an alarm struck in
any story should reach all others in
the mill. 1t clearly and indubitably ap-
pears that all measures of escape by
doors from every story were free and
unobstructed, except by smoke and
flame, there being no locks or bolts on
any door communicating with any room,
excepting the lower door leading to the
tower. and that is always open during
the time help is employed, And we now
say that the approximate cause of death
of the said James Turner and % others
on the morning in question was caused
by. the burning of the mill, they either
being destroyed by fire inside, or killed
leaping to the ground from the MILL
'rThe jurors conclude as follows: Let
the lesson not pass unheeded, either to
the mill owners or public in general
that human life is precious and in all
means that tend to save, either particu-
Iarly or general, the precious boon to
the poorest mortal has the sanction
of all mankind and an example in
Him who died for all"
T. r
Dispatches from the troubled sec.
tions of the South, where race conflicts
were frequent at this time SO years
ago, were often misleading. owing to the
False Dispatches writer's of the
From the South. nosition noSt ano to ,ne cons u,n
fuse the judgment of the North in
the matter of the outrages that were
being committed. The Star of October
s, 1874, says:
Preference was made in this column
Yesterday to the unreliability of many
dispatches sent from the South, SO far
as difficulties between whites and blacks
are concerned, and especially to a dis
patch sent from Alabama charging the
deputy marshals, who recently arrested
four men accused of the murder of Bill
lings. with brutality in the treatment
of their prisoners. Special Agent Clark
of the Post Office Department, who ar
rived here from Montgomery yesterday
morning, saw the prisoners when
brought into Montgomery Saturday last
and pronounces the press dispatch
falsehood from beginning to end.
The marshals who made the arrests are
natives, one Of Alabama and the other
of Kentucky, and are highly esteemed
as honorable gentlemen, who could not
be guilty of maltreating hopeless pris-
oners. II the outspoken denun-
citation of outrages in the South by such.
conservatives as Jefferson Davis and
Gen. N B. Pillow means anything, it
means that the respectable portion of