FATAL FIRES IN AMERICA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1991, 7 January 1890, Page 3

FATAL FIRES IN AMERICA.

The Tribune building, Minneapolis, was destroyed by fire on the night of November 30ib. Fifty)] editors, printers and others employed on the top floor were apparently shut of from all avenues of escape, and the wildest excitement prevailed. The fire started about 10.30 in a pile of paper on the third floor, and the fUmes immediately enveloped the elevator shaft, closing all mode of egress for sixty or more men employed on the seventh floor. The building was eight storeys high, standing on Fourth street, near First avenue. It had but one stairway—n winding affair, and one elevator, which proved the means of its speedy destruction. The S' 1 . Paul Pioneer Press had au office, employing five men, on the sixth storey. There were about TOO men in ail employed on the top floors, snd of these eight are known to bo killed. Several tried crossing to another building hand over hand on telegraph wires, but their strength failed. They managed to get a distance of say 20ft, and then dropped to the ground to meet instant death. Others jumped or fell from window ledges. One man shot himself when he found (here was no chance to escape. Before the steam from the engines reached the upper floor the windows were full of men shrieking for help in a way that was heartrending.' The street was e mass of human beings, powerless to aid. When ladders were brought the work of rescue began quickly. Some got away, with a severe burning, by tire escapes and the stairway, many more by ladders. Half-a-d ozen jumped, and several were crushed. The entire plant of the Tribune, valued at IOO.OOOJoIs, is gone. The losses by the other occupants of the- building will swell the total to ISO.OOQdoIs, An abhorent sequel to the fire is that Cbas. S. Oslrom, cashier of (he Minneapolis department of the St. Paul Pioueer Press, located at (he Tribune building, is arrested for arson. He had, according to his own confession, embezzled 2200d01a of the pioneer Press money, which he had lost in gambling. His books were left out of the safe on the night of the fire, as if he intended by the destruction of life and property to prevent his shortage being detected by their being consumed at tiie same time. Ostrom, however, only confessed the money deficit, he denied the arson.

Lynn, Massachusetts, the great shoe manufacturing centre of the United States, was almost entirely swept away by fire on November 26th. The burnt district covers fully fifty acres and extends twothirds of a mile in length and one-third in breadth. The factories destroyed were the finest in the country. This is the most extensive fire in New England, excepting the Boston fire of 1872 and the Portland fire of J 866. The flames did not reach the portion of the city containing ihe handsomest residence houses. A close estimate p'aces the the losses as high as eight or ten million dollars. The most! deplorable feature of the catastrophe is I that over 2000 people have beeu deprived of employment almost in midwinter. Thanksgiving Day, November 28lh, brought the city of Boston its most distressing conflagration since 1872. It started at 8.15 o’clock a.m in a big sixstorey brown stone building 69 and 71 Kingston street occupied by Brown Beared and Co., the largest wholesale dry goods house in Boston. The cause was n badly insulated electric light wire. The building became ashes in'a few minutes. The area burned out comprised all the blocks bounded by Kingston, Bedford, and Ohannery streets, oue-half of that bounded by Kingston, Bedford, and Columbia, while streets leading off from Bedford and Ohannery wore burned out on corners adjacent to the fire. The record of destruction is liftern ' fine brick granite and sandstone blocks destroyed beyond repair. Half-a-dozen structures have their top storeys gone. A fair estimate places the dsmsge at not over 4,000,p00d01e, and the insurance at 3,500,000d015, The majority of the bmnt-out merchants have" arranged to resume business at once. The State Insurance Commissioner thinks it improbable that any Insurance Company wiil'bo compelled to succumb under the combined

disasters -i' Lynn and Boston, except perhaps one or two of the smaller concerns. Tlie largest b inkers anticipate no fi-mncial disaster. For-r firemen wi re buried in the ruins, and their bodies have not been recovered.