Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1900 — DIED IN A FIRE TRAP. [ARTICLE]

DIED IN A FIRE TRAP.

Fiflcca Victim* of Tenement Hsriae Horror at Newark. Fifteen persons, a majority of whom were children, were burned to death at a tenement house at Newark, N. J., Monday morning. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the rains within three hours after the flames had been extinguished. *n>e building was a three-story frame structure, formerly used ss a church, but transformed into a tenement house with small rooms, scarcely 8 by 10 feet in dimensions, opening into narrow hallways on both the second and third floors, forming a veritable fire trap. This location is fat the heart of the Italian district. There were at least twelve families in the place, sixty persons in all, of whom perhaps fifty were children, unable to care for themselves. The flames spread with frightful rapidity and the place was like a roaring caldron when the firemen reached the scene. One after another the women, and then the men, were taken down, while other firemen devoted their attention to drowning oat the flames. This they succeeded in doing in less than an boor, but daring that hour a frightful sacrifice had been offered. Nearly every room in the house contained its victim. Few were really burned to death. Most of them were smothered to death.