THE BURNING OF AN HOTEL AT MILWAUKEE.

Kumara Times, Issue 2014, 12 February 1883, Page 2

THE BURNING OF AN HOTEL AT MILWAUKEE.

ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST. + The American papers contain a long account of the burning of an hotel at Milwaukee, by which 100 lives were lost. The fire started apparently in the third floor of the doomed building over the side entrance on Michigan street, and before the fire brigade officers department got the steamers facing in position, the flames had enveloped the whole south-east corner of the building, the fiery element making its way greedily and with lightning-like rapidity towards the northern wing. The scene developed before the horror-struck view of the people was one which none of the eye-witnesses will ever forget. In a moment every window of the large hotel structure was filled with struggling guests, frantically and piteously beseeching those below for aid, which it was impossible to render. Many might have been saved if some attempts at systematic rescue had been made. The halls of the hotel were scenes of the wildest confusion, men, women, and children rushed up and down the passages in the dense suffocating smoke, avoiding the blinding flames and the roaring blaze, and in their frantic efforts rushed by the stairways and windows leading to the fire escape, stumbling over bodies lying unconscious on the carpeted walks, only to join them, and soon there were many prostrate and dead forms. By this time the multitude, which numbered thousands, stood in perfect awe; but few having selfpossession enough to lend a helping hand. Tom Thumb and his wife were rescued from the building by a policeman, who took one of the little people under each arm and carried them downstairs and across the street to the American Express office. They were in their night clothes, and Mrs Thumb suffered much from a cold. The General, immediately on being planted in the express office, began mourning the loss of' valuable diamonds and other jewellery belonging to his wife. The latter heard him, and replied reprovingly, " What if I have lost everything ; just look at those people there !" pointing to the forms of twenty .dead and dying men and women on the floor. The little woman then bravely began to relieve the sufferings of those around her by supplying them with water and by a display of other acts of sympathy and of kindness. John Gilbert, the comedian of the Minnie Palmer Company, jumped from the third storey with his wife in his arms, and about the same time a man named Johnson jumped from a window above, and jumped on Mr and Mrs Gilbert. The united weight of them crushed his wife to death. The actor's head was cut and bruised in a frightful manner, and he was picked up in an unconscious

state and taken to Plankington Hospital. Mrs Gilbert was an actress, but a young lady of culture and refinement. A strange incident occurred when Mrs Gilbert's body reached the morgue. An Irishman identified the body as that of his daughter. He at once proceeded to strip the fingers of the dead woman of her sparkling- rings and wrenched the rings from her ears. At that raomeut old Mrs Donahoe reached the morgue, and with a passionate burst of grief recognised the body as that of her daughter-in-law. " It's my child," cried the alleged father, still stripping the jewellery from the dead woman. The grief-stricken old lady and the robber confronted each other, and the painful scene amid ghastly surroundings created the greatest confusion. Fiftyone bodies have so far been recovered, twenty-eight of which are burnt beyond recognition, leaving thirty still missing. The afternoon papers made the following statement:—To morgue, sixteen ; recovered from the ruins, twenty-one ; since died, eight; dead not taken to the morgue, five. Total, fifty-one. This does not include fragments of bodies found. About forty people are reported missing or yet unaccounted for, which swells the list to ninety-two. It is almost a sure thing that over a hundred people lost their lives by this calamity. It is stated that the fire was the work of an incendiary.