Show mm TO BEATH this FOUR OF THE DEAD suffocated BY SMOKE woman who attempted to sound the Alarm Fell headlong into the flames kansas city fob 1 five persons were burned to death and five others wore injured in a fire in a three story rooming house at 1116 wyandotte street near the business center this morning the dead mrs jennie bert aged 29 harris onville mo waitress mable porter aged 18 waitress nina graves aged 18 waitress peter rooney aged 34 cook charles H johnson aged 28 cook the injured received slight burns and cuts and none is in a dangerous condition all of the dead except mrs bert lived in kansas city alie alre started from an explosion of natural gas in the basement at 5 this morning the flames and dense smoke spread quickly throughout the building and before an alarm could be given all means of escape by the ordinary exits had been shut off the five persons who lost their lives were asleep on the third floor and all save sirs bert were burned to death in their rooms evidently they had been suffocated and none apparently had evea made an attempt to escape before tho firemen arrived the building was a mass of flames and the rooms on the upper floors could not be entered mable porter and nina graves two of the dead occupied a room together the injured slept on the lower floors and in the basement most of these escaped without aid fighting their way through the flames and smoke tho firemen were able to rescue others from the burning building mrs bert lost her life in trying to arouse the inmates the dense smoke pouring up tho stairway soon filled the hallways hall and entered the rooms mrs berts room on the third floor was close to the landing and it was one of the first to be entered by the smoke she was awakened and hurrying down the hallway on that floor aho attempted to awaken the sleeping roomers the smoke soon drove her to the second floor where she tried to repeat her efforts at giving an alarm the smoke and flames how over now crowded her so closely that aha was compelled to desist and sought to escape by tho stairway at the top of the second floor landing she stumbled and fell headlong down the stairway landing in the thickest of the flames at the bottom her charred remains were later found by the firemen the body was almost unrecognizable there were twenty persons in the building when the alre biake out i most of the roemerg worked at night as waitresses and cooks at nearby hotels and had only retired a short time previous and they were deep asleep this fact doubtless accounts for tho inability of mrs bert to awaken them the bodies of the tour victims were found in their beds each had been terribly burned and the limbs dropped from one of them as the remains were later carried from the house the alarm of fire was turned in by col wallis wood a capitalist formerly of st joseph mb the building was one of the oldest in the was situated on what in kansas cites early days was known as quality hill tho building was a veritable firetrap and when the firemen arrived it was then already doomed it was not supplied with fire escapes and had no means of escape except by way of the stairway up through which the |