Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1882 — A HUMAN HOLOCAUST. [ARTICLE]

A HUMAN HOLOCAUST.

Horrible Results of a Fire in the Poor Asylum at Halifax. Twenty-three Women and Eight Men Consumed Almost Beyond Recognition. Awful Scenes in the Blazing Structure Among the Doomed and Frenzied Inmates. A dispatch from Halifax, In Nova Scotia, says that at midnight, while all hands were sleeping, fire broke out in the bake-house, in the basement of the Poor Asylum building. Exactly how it originated is not very clear, but the smoke of the smouldering wood spread through the building into the dormitories and caused the utmost terror among four or five hundred inmates of the institution. There was no immediate danger, so the officers of the asylum did not take steps to remove the inmates. An alarm was sounded, and the stroke bell had scarcely commenced when reels were run out of the engine houses, as one or two men happened to be about. A few people who had not retired, and others who lived in the neighborhood, ran to the building. They found smoke issu ng from (he windows all over the building, but no flames were to be seen. In the west wing old women and children were seen at the windo as, crying to be let out, and, as ! hey began breaking glass, it was feared they would throw themselves to the ground. A sturdy ax man dashed at the door leading from this wing into the yard, and with a few vigorous blows of his ax knocked it in. The stairways were crowded, and out came a procession of women nursing infants, old, gray-headed grandmas, and feeble old men. All were screaming, and as they reached the fresh air without they ejaculated their thanks, and then began calling for this one and that one until all was a babel of confusion. Then it became known that those in Ihe upper wards of that wing were helpless. Some of the firemen and fire wardens and aidermen and clergymen, and others who were among the early arrivals, hastened up, and willing hands were soon getting the blind, halt and lame down the long winding stairs. The work was a very slow one, but finally that wing was emptied. In the meantime the names in the basement, which the Superintendent, engineer and officials were trying io keep under, spread to the base of the long air shaft or elevator reaching to the top of the main building. The draught here swept the flames upward with tremendous force, and in a few seconds the heaviest part of the conflagration was in the top of the main building. The story just under the eaves in this building was used as a hospital, and in it were about seventy patient*, most of them perfectly helpless. The fire was now fiercely burning right in the' hospital and above it. The heat was so intense that lead poured down from the roof in streams of brilliartt fire, and slates flew everywhere in deadly showers, rendering any near approach to the building almost certain death. Notwithstandiugthis, there wen-hundreds standing outside who would willingly have entered the building if they could have found their way through the place. Indeed, several did o in, but without guidance could do nothing in the immense building, and had to return to the yard. An attempt v\ as made to raise ladders to the windows, but the ladders were too short, and after a fireman was knocked do 1 n by falling brick, and it was seen that the ladders even would be swept away in a few minutes, the attempt ceased. The fire burst through the roof, and the scene was one never to be forgotten. Far above the roar of the flames and crack of burning slates were heard ihc cries of the wretched patients n the hospital, who were roasting to de ith. Mo*t of them, as before stated, were helpless, and could not leave their beds, and perhaps were stifled before the cruel flames reached them, but others were seen to dash themselves against the windows and cling to the sa*hes till their strength was exhausted or their hands burned off, and they fell back into the seething caldron of flames. A woman was seen to drag herself to the corner window, and, forcing her body half out th ough the iron bars i ill she could breathe cool air, she remained in that position till her head burned off. As far as can be ascertained, thirty- one persons were burned to death—eight men and twenty-three women. The building was constructed in 1868. It cost $83,000. and was in,,*ired for $50,000.