Salt Lake Tribune | 1913-12-04 | Page 3 | Twenty-Eight Lives Lost in Boston Fire

TWEHITY-EIGHT LIVES LOST liBOSTON HE Cheap Lodging House in the South End Destroyed in Early Morning Hour. ! VICTIMS HAD NO CHANCE Eight Separate Investigations ' of the Horror Started by City Authorities. BOP-TON, Ma S3., Dec. 3. The flro which cost the lives of twenty-eight men in tho Arcadia hotol. a low-prlccd lodging houso In tho south end district, early today had become the subject of eight separate investigations by nightfall. Somo of theso 'Nero to determine where lay responsibility for tho conditions which made the loss of life no large, and others oth-ers were directod toward dovldng measures meas-ures to protect hundreds of other men forced by circumstances to neck snelter in similar places. Directed by District Attorney Pellltler, the grand Jury paid a visit to the hotol while the ruins were still smouldering. They Baw the romains of cots laid side by side In a general dormitory on tho fifth floor and narrow and boxlike rooms on tho floor below, in which privacy was obtained by inmates for a fow cents more than was paid by tho dormitory occupant-). Tho cause of tho fire was not determined. deter-mined. Jatcr the Jury went to the morguo, whero Medical Examiner Timothy J. Leary pointed out that In nearly every Instanco death had been caused by suffocation. suffo-cation. Other lodging houses in tho vicinity vi-cinity were afterward inspected by tho Jury In order to see how those houses were conducted In roferenco to tho safo-. safo-. ty of the occupants at night. Other Investigations were the official I Inquest by Medical Examiner Leary, ln- onirics by the flro commissioner, the building commissioner and tho board of health, tho city police department, the state pollco and a poraonal research by Mayor Fitzgerald. Joseph G. Ijyons of Brooklyn, president of the firm which operated tho Arcadia as part of a chain of lodging houses in Boston. New Yorlc, Brooklyn. Newark and Jorsoy City, said he believed tho (Ire started under the stairs in the main hallway. Within a few monthH throe other mysterious mys-terious Area havo boon dlsoovorcd there, he said. v "This tire was undoubtedly Incendiary," Incen-diary," he added. None of the dead men had been Identified Iden-tified tonight. Two of the injured taken to the city hospital. William Sulllvnn and George F. Adams, died today. Search of the bodies developed little to assist In Identification. It revealed the financial circumstances of the men when only $1.47 was gathered from the effects of all the victims.