I
Shortly after 2:30 this morning fire broke out in a pile of old papers in the basement of the Harmony Flat building, at 1356 Congress avenue, a four-story eight-apartment structure. Two firemen were killed by a falling wall.
The fire had a good start before the janitor, Michael Jones, who sleeps in the basement, awoke. He turned in an alarm and ran through the halls awakening the occupants. The people on the two lower floors escaped in their night clothing by the stairways, but the fire spread very rapidly, the occupants of the upper floors being forced to flee down the fire escapes in the rear.
When the firemen put in an appearance, Mrs. Jeanette Huyler appeared at a third story window and called for help. An extension ladder being hoisted, she was rescued without difficulty. During the fire the wall on the east side fell and killed Fireman John Casey and Jacob Hughes; Fireman Williams Jacobs was hit on the head by a brick and seriously injured.
The fire was extinguished before it spread to an adjoining three-story flat building on the west.
The firemen in searching the ruins found the body of a man who was later identified as Rupert Smithers; he was 70 and occupied a lower flat by himself. The janitor said that he was deaf and probably did not hear the warning. The three dead and injured firemen belong to Hose Co. No. 24.
Loss $50,000, fully insured.
II
The police have arrested John Johnson, 23 years old, 2367 Sixth Street, charged with murdering Mrs. Laura Buckthorn, the well-known proprietor of the Duchess Restaurant, 438 High street. He is now in the county jail.