Show CAUGHT LIKE RAT guests in a hotel in poplar bluff mo the victims of a midnight fire and many burned to Deat hToo late to give the alarm when the flames were discovered gopar dlatt mo nov 12 A fire accompanied a terrible fatality tr occurred here tills morning resu in the total destruction of thos house a large three story frame S 0 0 known d te aabol i clark I Phan mo rebecca owens poplar bluff shelby 0 bluff carey Poy musto bessee dalton hot the following were badly burned or injured in jumping from windows T A poplar burn cd about the face and hands barney bernaud Per naud desoto mo shands and ace barnea charles stradley poplar i aluff bruised and bumen mrs ben f jaman shelby poplar bluff back inbur ed burned and bruised pink berry elmer ear and jamos upchurch poplar bluff severely burned an un cnown woman Is also thought to be fa tally injured and about a dozen more were slightly burned or received bruises in trying to escape from the i building the fire originated about 1230 0 clock in the rear of the hotel and in a few minutes the building which was entirely of wood was a mass 0 flames there were in the neighborhood of forty five guests in the building and the porter the only person awake in the hotel was unable to give an alarm the smoke and flames driving him back the fire department was on hand but was unable to render any assist ance to the inmates the guests on I 1 the second and third floors were caught L etke rate in a trap the fire preventing R escape by the stairs and they i leaped from the windows one of these heck dark jumped and broke bis back etta hargrove leaped from a third story window and suffered broken limbs and internal injuries which will cause aher death others were also internally injured one guest benjamin shelby forced his wife to leap from a second atory window and thereby saved her alte mr shelby tried to escape by the stair but the smoke and flames drove him back he asserts that he saw ten or fifteen persons in the hallway over i come by smoke it this Is the case a dozen or more bodies may be found in the ruins t many of the guests had hairbreadth hair breadth 1 escapes and ran from the doomed building clad only in their night clothes losing everything they had possessed in the world their and eye brows were signed by the flames there were heroism and it some of the male guests had not aided the weaker sex the death t list would be larger As yet it Is am possible to tell just haw many lives were lost quite a number of guests were not registered and their names are unknown every room in the house for ty five in number was occupied men are at work on the ruins but it will probably be several daya before the complete list of deaths will be obtain able the alfford house was one of the oldest hotels in southeast missouri been considered a deathtrap and it has for a number of years W P ie and bis ria was the proprietor afe escaped but lost everything |