The Milwaukee Fire.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 129, 8 May 1883, Page 2

The Milwaukee Fire.

The Insnrance and Banking "Record ' writes : Some of tho circumstances attending the burning of Newhall House, Milwaukee, by which 75 lives j were lost, arrest attention. Up to the j date of the fire the proprietors advertised \ thns: — '* House, Milwaukee W"is — J. F. Antisdea and Son, proprietors. Great reductions m rates. Rooms and board 2do's, 2.50d01s and 3<iols per day. Bake and Dwight's patent fire escape provides mraris of exit from every flo<?- m case of emergency. The hotel employes are kept m training 1 as a fire department on every floor, and evety floor is supplied with water and hose." The fire gives the direct negative to nearly the whole of this advertisment. Kven the alarm bell could not be rung for want ot a rope, the old rope having rotted off several years since, and was not] replaced. Another point is the obstacle presented by the telegraph, wires. Tt is stated that " the large nnraber of telegraph wires suspended on the numerous poles m that block proved a serious obstacle to tho pipemen, and delayed the extention ladders, also thwarting the saving of life." A meeting of citizens was held at which the running of telegraph and telephone wiras on poles was vigorously denounced, and a demand made for legislation that shoujd compell tbe running of them under ground. The Chicago Argus says that " a few years ago a newspaper oi Chicago printed a full account of this same hotel, describing a frightful loss of life, closing with the remark that while it was then hoax,a the condi tion of the building was such that the calamity portrayed was liable to occur at any time, and the prediction has been carried out with all its attended horrors." Incendiarism was suggested as the cause of the fire, and a few days after the owner ot the bar of the house was arrested, and the prima facie evidence against him 18 considered to be strong. It is alleged that over* insurance supplies the motive. But the New York Chronicle is jusb m expressing a hope that Scheller's innocence may be j established ; " for the deliberate and wilful firing of a building containing nearly 200 inmates, m such circumstancec that escape for any considerable number of them was well nigh impos-* sible, is such a monstrous crime that the soul sn rinks from the conclusion that a sane human being could have been guilty of it."