BIG LONDON FIRE.

Marlborough Express, Volume C, Issue 217, 20 September 1911, Page 3

BIG LONDON FIRE.

THE CARLTON HOTEL

EXCITING SCENES IN THE WEST ! , END. ■ / I

It is a very long time indeed since such a fir© scene has been, witnessed in the West End (writes a special correspondent of the Morning Leader, in describing the fire at the Oarlton Hotel, London, on August 9th.) The crowds were enormous.' Every street debouching on the Cairlton Hotel was packed! r The dens© masses of people were1 added to every moment by diners-but diverting their motor cars and taxis, and -driving to the scene. No direction was. needed. The fire pile of the Carlton building-was belching great volumes of black smoke to Heaven like some Titan ironworks. The fascination of those huge black writhing coils extended to exeryone. Even the Juggernaut motor buses took their fill of that unique sensation—a blazing West End hotel. MR CHURCHILL ARRIVES. The crowds were so thick that the task of trying to get anywhere near the hotel seemed hopeless. It was Mr Winston Churchill who came to the rescue and enabled me to get a nearer view: A way was cleared by the police for the Home Secretary, just as it was on the historic occasion of the Sidney Street siege, and getting under the friendly wing of his feockcoat tails, and safely traversing scores of rubber pipings which oozed water until Pall Mall and, C'ockspur Street resembled the Goodwins, I found myself outside the Haymarket entrance of the Carlton.

Here, excited German porters in uniform w,ere energetically ejecting everyone who was not resident in the hotel. The exterior of the Carlton resembled a beleagured fortress. All round:it the long siege-looking ladders of the fire brigade were\ planted against the walls,; with dishevelledlooking firemen climbing up and down and carrying hoses. There seemed to be scores of engines snorting and clanking beneath them. Police warned you to get under shelter as soon as possible, as slates were falling. All round people were congregated on -the the roofs, and a Coronation stand in Pall Mall was well patronised. ■'■■■"■■ Quests iN-;PTjamas,"' -S.- . The scene-inside the entrance' hall of the hotel w"as almost indescribable. Behind the scenes on the first night of a Drury Laile pantomime is but a mild comparison. Gentlemen in pyjamas with a light overcoat thrown over them, were hopping about in a two-inch lake in the hall, and ladies in" a sort of Half-and-half evening dress-cum-walking. costume were, huddled inside doors for shelter. The American twang was easily predominant, aaid babel would have seemed a peaceful. calm by the side, of it. Through it all the men in possession, the firemen, tramped, heeding no one, American millionaire or luggage porter

The most conspicuous figure which met my eye was. that of •Mr Kramer, the manager. His evening dress suit was a dress suit no longer ;■ his,shirt looked as though it had never been a shirt—black,- crumpled and shapeless ---and his shoes and socks were sopping and sagging with,water. I asked him if he thought everyone had been saved. "I do not' know," he replied. "I have just heard, thank heaven, that everyone on the sixth floor is safe. ""I cannot tell yet about the fifth floor. It is awful." "And the hotel?" I asked.. "The hotel—mv beautiful hotel, it

is spoilt. Everywhere there is watei nothing, nothing is spared." Mr Kramer's grief was well justified. Down the fine staircase a steady cascade of water was falling. It spread over the marble floor, ant! lay in pools, throughwhich women shod in. satin shoes had to splash. Every now and then sometjiing canve crashing down from above. All the while an army of porters were steadily ascending or descending with piles of luggage, sofas, chairs, small carpets,'and every article it was possible to save. These were mostly deposited in the street. RESCUING INVALIDS

Then a little party of firemen,came' down, the stairs carrying very, tender- ; ly and carefully two people who were ill arid helpless. They were followed' by a lady who had fainted from the ■snock. She was carried into the street, where she soon revived. Mr Kramer told me that the, fire started in a sendee lift on the fifth floor. No one seemed to have noticed it at once. At any rate, the alarm appears to have come from outsider j The first thing the inmates were' aware of 'was a. thick fog of smoke, which spread like a plague • through the corridors. When the outbreak was discovered difficulty was experienced in giving the alarm- by telephone as the wires had been affected. l?y heat. People were caught in all sorts of occupations, for the hour, a little after seven, was very awkward. Mbst, of the visitors were dressing for din- i ncr; a goodly few were actually in] their baths. The experience of one j lady, Mrs Yon Krieger, of New York, ' is probably typical. Mrs Krieger was in evening dress, -with a rope of costly pearls round her neck. Her face and hair were just as they should be for dinner, but her corsage was black and ruined. "I was just finishing dressing," she said, "on the fourth floor, when I heard my maid rushing' along the corridor crying 'Fire!' I got to the door as quickly as possible, I but I hardly got outside when I ran : into a bank of smoke. In a few | seconds11 could not see a. yard in front J of me, my eyes were smarting and ! crying so. Fortunately, one of the chambermaids found me, and piloted m-) downstairs. As I wasl going down a mass of something black and burning fell on me, and you see what it* Has done." !

Judge Cohen, of New York, gave me a similar experience. He, too, . was dressing for dinner, and just managed, to escape getting enveloped in the blinding and choking smoke. An acquaintance of his, Mr Schlief, said he saw about a dozen people on the fourth floor climb out on to the window sills. One or two hung by their hands, but the firemen yelled to them to go back. i I managed to get upstairs and on to the roof a little.later, though the smoke and the water, which seemed to be pouring down everywhere, made it a not too comfortable task. The : unfortunate hotel looked as though it had been shelled and looted. The higher, one got, the worse the scene of carnage became. One saw whole suites apparently ruined and swim- ; ming in water. Bedrooms were flood- ; ed, and valuable carpets, and schemes of decoration, were but faded ; memories. On the roof from which \ the flames were shooting fiercely up, while the firemen fired solid rods of water at them from various points on

the fourth floor. The scene, with the shouts of the firemen, looked an inferno. All the bedrooms on the fifth and sixth floors were deserted. In one of them, Billie Burke, the bright little American actress, had been sitting. In other bedrooms, hotel officials were with the occupants, checking the damage to their belongings. . In the Haymarket luggage stood piled high with the owners in variously assorted garbs, standing on guard beside it. In some of the ground floor rooms of the hotel people were ' chatting and talking and smoking as though nothing very much were happening. In the dining-room, a party oi four youthful Americans had eaten unconcernedly throughout. GENERAL'S NARROW ESCAPE.

General Huddlestone, who has stayed at the hotel for some years, had a remarkable escape. He was writing in his room on the fifth floor of the hotel when his room was filled with smoke. He tried to get into the hall, but was driven back by the smoke ,and flames. "I then climbed out of the window," he said, "and hung to the windowledge. After what seemed to be a very long time, two hotel employees came to my help. They put a ladder up, and I was enabled to climb to the next floor. After that the firemen came with another ladder, and with a rope tied" round my waist I was able to descend in safety." '.':.'