Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1880 — Shocking Calamity. [ARTICLE]

Shocking Calamity.

Between twenty and thirty lives were! lost by the burning of the large wall-paper manufactory of M. H. Birge & Sons, in Buffalo. The structure was a five-story brick. 300 feet in depth and 80 feet wide. About iSO men and boys were employed in the building. A dispatch from Buffalo gives the following particular's of the sad disaster : About ten minutes before 6 o’clock one of the meu employed in the third ffcory reported to the foreman. Thomas Henry, who was 'on the floor below, that one of the printing machines was on fire. He speedilv made his way up stairs, and saw the press at; the rear of the room enveloped in flames, which had, by this time, spread to the adjacent woodwork, while the place was filled with dense smoke. As a temperature of 60 degrees is maintained continually throughout the factory, to assist the drying process, and as this had rendered everything as dry as tinder, Mr. Henry realized that the spread of the flames would be terribly rapid, and it was folly to think that anything could be done to avert it. He turned and ordered the employes to fly for their lives, immediately warning as best he could those who were in the fourth and fifth stories, they being principally boys. In the meantime an alarm had been sounded, to which & portion of the department responded, and a second and general alarm brought the remainder. The scene now presented was one that would touch the stoutest heart. The building was wrapped in seething flames. Employes jumped from the highest windows, while many boys in the two upper stories, who had been unsuccessful in their efforts to escape, or became too bewildered to follow the example of their companions, appeared at the windows with white cud terrified faces and frantically shout-

ed for help. But their torture was of brief duration, for, almost simultaneously with their cry for aid, they sank back, overcome by suffocation from the* smoke, and, within twenty minutes from the time the alarm was Hounded, the walls crumbled and fell with a crash. One small boy, whose name could not be learned, courageously jumped from the fifth story, and, catching the telegraph wires, which then gave way, slid down one of them, and escaped with badly cut hands. John Malone, aged 15 years, jumped from the fifth story, struck the sidewalk, and was almost instantly killed. John Fields, employed as overseer among the boys, jumped from the fourth story and was picked tip dead. John T. Berry jumped from one of the upper stories and sustained a fracture of the spine and of both arms. He will probably die, A number of otfiers saved their lives by leaping from the windows of the burning building, but nearly ail of them sustained injuries more or less s vote. As far as can bo ascertained twenty bo\s if not more, were roasted alive in the fire.