Connecticut Western News

Terrible Fire in Boston.

The business heart of Boston has been burned out. A fire which began at half past seven o'clock on Saturday evening in the engine room of a large wholesale dry goods house in Kingston Street, the boundary in the South End, between the tenement houses and the heaviest wholesale blocks, raged over fifteen hours, and could not be fairly said to be subdued till near five o'clock Sunday evening. It swept away the finest blocks of granite buildings for business purposes on this continent, the burnt district being bounded by Washington, Bedford, Summer, Broad, State, Congress and Milk Streets. The seat of the wholesale dry goods, leather, boot and shoe, and wool trades is in ruins. Dazed business men, on the spot, talk wildly of an aggregate of $250,000,000 loss; it is clear from the most careful calculations that the loss cannot in any case fall below eighty to one hundred millions of dollars. The local insurance companies are ruined, with many elsewhere in New England, which have heretofore been rated among the soundest and strongest in the country. The loss, however, falls mainly on those best able to bear it, the wealthiest classes in one of the wealthiest cities of the Union; and the immediate suffering for lack of shelter will be nothing like as great as the Chicago fire.