TERRIBLE TENEMENT LIFE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 293, 5 December 1908, Page 6

TERRIBLE TENEMENT LIFE

ELEVEN i'EOI'LE KILLED. Xcw York, October (i. The ouysterioiis ltuliuu organisation culled the "Black llaud," which ill Ji'ew York ami other big American cities lives li.v blackmailing Italians of the most ig nor.r.it t'luss, is held responsible for a! tenement lire ill this city to-day, which resulted in the loss of eleven lives, while several persons were severely injured. | Barrels of oil-soaked paper were jiiled under the stairs of the tenement house, II and shortly after midnight the incendiary's match was applied. This outrage occurred in the Calalirinn section of the .New Vork district, where the "Black Hand" has lately been particularly active. Tlie theory of the po-

lice is that somebody iu the tenemoiit ollended the "Jilack Hand," and to end bis or her life (he lives of others were destroyed. The dead include a married couple named l-'orcilio, four young children, -i widow and her seven-year-old daughter, two girl boarders, and an old man. All the victims were Italians, mostly poolfolk. lictween midnight and 1 11,111, a. man was seen i|iiiekly moving barrels from the street into tiie hall-way of the tenement bouse, and then, suddenly, this

stranger ran from the house, accidentally knocked over a fruit stand, turned i s'treet corner, and disappeared. Immediately flumes were seen leaping from the doorway. In the excitement tlr: people forgot to summon the fire-en-gines, lint men ia the upper floors el the tenement began tiring revolvers from the windows, in the lalabrian quarter mum- people arc usually armed with revolvers and stilettos. The tenants awoke at the first cry of "l-'ire!" and began crowding the house lire-escapes from the fourth and top Doors down to the second. Several women, in their frenzy, dropped their babies to two men 011 the escape, and the latter passed them down to men on the pavement below. When the engines arrived men ami women in all stages of dress and undress were running about screaming, ami every tenement in the neighborhood was

emptied. On tlie fourth door lived the doonieil Foreillos and a lioiivcli-r. Pnlcstrina Foi eillo and his wife got to the escape in front, ami were followed by tlicir children and the boarder, when there came nu explosion, supposed to have been caused by a back draught. The house trenfbied anil windows crushed. Th-n came Ihiines from the windows below, and the Forcillos were driven back Into their smoke-filled and already blazing rooms. They ran to the escapes in tfce rear. In the father's anus was one of the children, the mother carried another, and iPaiestrina held a third. The clothes of all were on tire,' and the (lames came out over the escapes. (Suddenly smoke hid the imprisoned .persons from view. The firemen found their bodies later. All had been suffocated and burned. One mother , managed to drop her baby into a blanket held by the people below, but on attempting to save tho lives of her other children she was overwhelmed by the flames and burned to death. A man wdio refused to leave the premises without his money also lost his life.