An Awful Catastrophe.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 3, Issue 64, 8 February 1883, Page 2

An Awful Catastrophe.

THE BURNING HOTEL. FEARFUL SCENES. HAIIUBREADTH ESCAPES. A HEART-HENDING NARRA* TIVE. (Per Mail Steamer.) The American papers contain long accounts of the burning of the hotel at Milwaukee, by which 100 lives were lost. The scone developed before the horror-stricken fe.v was one which none of the eye* witnesses will ever forget. In "a moment every window of the large exchange store, and the hotol structure was filled- with struggling guests frantically and piteously beseeching those bel iw for aid, whick it was impossible to render, bufc a few of the unfortunate inmates gained the front entrance on Michigan~strept, although many might bave been saved if some attempts at pystemaiic rescue had been made. The halls of the hotel were the scenes of wildest confusion. Men, women, and ! children rushed up and down the halls m the dense suffocating smoko, some avoiding the blinding flames, and m their frantio efforts rushed by the stairways and windows leading to the fireescape, and stumbling over bodies lying unconscious on* the carpeted walks, only to join them, and soon there were many prostrate forms whom kind fate had touched with the dark wiog of that meesenger of death, unconsciousness The multitude, which by this time had numbered thousands, stood m perfect awe, but few having selt-posses ioa and resolution en >ugh to lead a helping hand on the canvasses stretched oub to receive those of the despairing inmates of the burning pile who risked the leap down to the side twalk 100 feet below.