Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1890 — BURNED IN A HOTEL. [ARTICLE]

BURNED IN A HOTEL.

r Peopla Parish in th* Piers?* ■ ■ atfcV<*ca*e. M. Y, - The Leland Hotel at Syracuse,. N. Y M burned eariy in the morning on the 16th, It is believed twenty-five persons perished in the flames or lost their lives by jumping. One woman t was being lowered from • window by a rope. Whenshe had reached a point opposite the third Story the flames burned the rope into. The woman fell to the pavement, her brains being dashed out and her body flattened into a shapeless mass. Many people crazed with fright lost their lives by jumping from the windows. One man says he saw six peo. pie jump from one side of the building within a space of four minutes. The building, however, was amply provided with fire escapes and ropes, which were the means of saving many lives. One woman was discovered with a nursing babe in her arms crouched in a stairway, where she had been overcome by smoke. She did not regain consciousßess for many hours after oeing rescued. Cora Tanner, the actress, was among the injured. Most of those killed were in the fourth and fifth stories. The crowds surrounding the burning build, ing were simply overpowering. The scenes and incidents connected with the rescue of inmates were heartrending in the ex* treme. At 1:12 a. m. a man and woman were seen locked in each other’s arms, in a Window on the fifth floor, at the norths eist comer of the building. Below them was a perfect sea of flame. No possibility of escape except by the windows was open A) thorn, and that seemed inevitable death. No assistance could reach them. The woman seemed to be anxious to jump, but her husband was earnestly entreating her to desist. The crowd below waited with bated breath. The woman made' one last effort to jump, was re strained by her husband, and the cry of the crowd signaled theawful end that must have befallen them as they fell backward into the room into a mass, of flames. At a window on the fourth floor, almost directly under this a woman appeared at the window. She was surrounded on all sides from the interior of the room by fierce flames. She seemed irresolute as to whether to jump to the pavement or to face the fiery foe that was fast enercacfaing on her liberty and life. She stepped upon the sill,of the window and placed her hands above her head. People in the street below shuddered and turned their faces to shut out the horrible sight that must meet their gaze should the woman jump to the ground. The woman did not jump, but seemed to be withheld either by fear or a feeling that escape would come from some otter source. She stepped down from the sill into the room, but remained at the window but an instant, when the whole room became enveloped in flames, and the woman sank back from view. ’► The frightful shrieks of the guests and crackle of the flames could be beard for blocks away. The building burned so rapidly that most of the people on the upper floors were obliged to use the fire escape or jump for their lives. One woman appeared at the window in a room on the north side of the building with a baby in her arms. Her pitiful cries for help were heard until the flames gathered around her. The firemen tried in vain to raise a ladder on this side of the building. The woman was told to throw out the rope or jump from the window. She threw out the rope, and as she was climbing out of the window the flames enveloped her, and she fell back into the building and perished. Seven or eight men and children jumped from the upper stories on to a shed in the rear of the building. At one time seven persons were struggling together on the shed, which had already caught fire from the flying sparks. The victims were half naked. Several of them were seen to tear off their undergarment* that had —caught fire.---- One — woman’ lay on the ground where she nadfallen tearing the hair from her head. Her hair had caught fire and it was with difficulty that the flames were quenchedShe. together with the others who had umped from the rear windows, was picked up and carried on a stretcher to a saloon in the neighborhood. In this saloon'severil persons lay on the pool-tables in all positions. One of the women was Annie Schwartz, a laundry girl employed in the hotel. She was rescued from the rear of he fourth floor by a colored man who had a'ready saved several others of the help. The doors of Gray Bros., shoe manufacturers, across the street, were smashed in and several persons carried thereon stretchers. The police office was turned into a hospital and the patrol wagons into ambulances. ■ One of the most frightful incidents of the fire was the terrlbls death of a woman who jumped from the fifth story of the building. Several policemen stood on the sidewalk holding nets ready to catch the guests as they jumped. Two persons, a man and a woman, jumped into one of the nets almost at the same moment apd escaped with broken limbs. The next te jump was a woman who appeared in a window on the fifth story in her night clothes. She leaped out of the window and, missing the net, was dashed to pieces on the stone sidewalk. She was picked up and removed to the morgue. The building will be a total loss. Tt was built two years ago at a-cost of IGO,OOO. It is six sterlet high, and contained 4<X) rooms. Il ls impossible "to learn how many guests were in the hotel at the time the fire broke out. The total loss will not fall short of half a million dollars. The building is partly covered by insurance, but it is impossible to Garn how much insurance was carried on ;be hotel furniture, i-»what the private % n <J 'ndividual losses will be. At the i Mary Grabowisky to John Levinduo'oki at Iron Mountain, Mich, on the 15th, one Dombrowsky started trouble by making a sneering remark about the bride. Tem Kpsobosky resented it, and n the fight that followed Tom was killed. If the sneering remark had any reference to Miss Grabowisky's name wa want to assert that In that respect Mr. jDombroaky has little to brag about