Palmerston North Post and Telegraph Officer. (Photos by E. Denton.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 47

Palmerston North Post and Telegraph Officer. (Photos by E. Denton.)

A TERRIBLE FIRE. » " BLACK HAND " GANG BURN DOWN A TENEMENT HOUSE That mysterious Italian organisation called the "Black Hand," which in New

York and other big American cities lives by blackmailing Italians of the most ignorant class, is held responsible for a tenement fire in that city, which resulted in the loss of 11 lives, while several per- . sons were severely injured. Barrels of oil- ! soaked paper were piled under the stairs of the tenement house, and shortly after mid-

night the incendiary's match was applied. This outrage occurred in the Oalabrian section of the New York district, where the " Black Hand" has lately been particularly active. The theory of the police is that somebody in the tenement offended the " Black Hand," and to end his life or her life the lives of others were destroyed.

The dead include a married couple named Forcillo, four young children, a widow, and her 6even-year-old daughter, two girl boarders, and an old man. All th«> victims were Italians, mostly poor folk. Between midnight and 1 a.m. a man was seen quickly moving barrels from the I street into the hall-way of the tenement house, and then, suddenly, this stranger

ran from the house, accidentally knocked over a fruit stand, turned a street corner, and disappeared. Immediately flames were seen leaping from the doorway. In the excitement the people forgot to summon the fire engines, but men in the upper floors of the tenement began firing revolverß from the windows. In the Cala- I

Brian quarter many people are usually armed with revolvers or stilettos. The tenants awoke at | THE FIBBT CHY OF " FIHE I" and began crowding the house fire escapee ( from the fourth and top floors down to the second. Several women, in their frenzy, dropped their babies to two mem

01 the escape, and the latter passed them down to men on the pavement below. When the engine arrived men and women in all stages of drees and undress were running about screaming, and every tenement in the neighbourhood was emptied. On the fourth floor lived the doomed

I Foroillo6 and a boarder. Palestrrno For1 cillo and hL, wife got to the escape vi fiont, and were followed by their children , and tihe boarder, when there came an ex- | plosion, supposed to have been caused by a back draught. The house trembled and windows crashed. Then came flames from ! the windows below, and the Foroillos were I driven back into their smoke-filled and

already blazing rooms. They ran to the escapee in the rear. In the father's arms was one of the children, the mother carried another, and Palestrino held a third. The clothes of all were on fire, and the flames came out over the escapes. Suddenly smoke hid the imprisoned persons i from view. The firemen found their

bodies later. All had been suffocated and I burned. I One mother managed to drop her baby { into a' blanket held by the people below, I but on attempting to save the lives of hef other children she was overpowered by the flames and burnt to death. A man who refused to leave the premises wittu1 out his money also lost his life.