When the flames were at their fiercest the officials of the Hamburg-American Jine decided that the only way to prevent a total destruction of their great pier was to blow up the side of the dock at which the Phoenicia lay, and this was done. A number of barges docked at the pier also took fire, but in the effort to si the other property no attention was paid to them, and they were allowed to burn, When the fire broke out such headway was gained by the time the Hoboken Fire Department arrived that they were utterly helpless to cope with the flames. Calls were made to the New York Fire Department for assistance, and fire tugs were sent over. These, however, had little effect on the great mountain of flame and smoke.
When the Hoboken firemen reached thy fire at first they set out to confine it to the pier on which it started. They got their lines out on the two Adjoining, and even ran their apparatus out to pump from the river. When the flames spread the hose on the pier was lost. Some of the apparatus narrowly escaped being consumed, and as it was, one hose cart and its horses were burned.
Later, Jersey City stripped itself of all the hose possible and sent it to the Hobo-ken firemen in a waggon for use. With ti streams were later gotten on the fire, but it was then under control, having burned itself out.
New York, 1st July.
At 2.30 o'clock this (Sunday) morning' the fire is still burning brightly, and view ed from the New York side presents brilliant spectacle. The bodies on the deck and in the hold of the Saale will probably be recovered by divers at once, but of the dozen who jumped into the North river some will never be found at all. The steamboat men lost are nearly all Germans, and many have no friends or rotatives in this country. No attempt has yet been made to compile a list of the dead. Up tu 2 o'clock twenty bodies had been recovered.
—San Francisco " Examiner."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.