On the twenty-first of last month about half a mile of summer hotels and pleasure resorts at Seaside Station, Rockaway Beach, L. I., was destroyed by fire.

More than thirty hotels went up in flame and smoke, together with about a hundred other business buildings and residences.

How the flames started is unknown. Many believe that the fire was the work of incendiaries, while others think that the flames resulted either from carelessness or spontaneous combustion. When the fire got beyond control the wildest orgies drunken men and boys, who reeled about with bottles in their hands, singing ribald songs, boasting of their success in thievery, and getting in the way of firemen and others who were trying to save property. The few policemen in the town had no time to pay attention to the rowdies, who did not hesitate to help themselves when possible to the goods piled up in the streets, taken from stores and houses by their owners. Rockaway Beach has seen many an orgy, but had never witnessed anything so unlicensed as this one.

ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE OCEAN HOUSE

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The fire, which lasted for six hours, broke out in the Seaside Museum, on the corner of Washington and Seaside avenues. Driven oceanward by the wind, it swept everything in its path. A large three-story frame hotel, known as the Grand Central, and containing 200 rooms, was soon afire. Between it and the Seaside Museum were numerous small hotels and boarding-houses, which stood directly in the path of the flames. Suddenly the wind veered to the south and seized on the buildings lying in that direction. Burning broke out among the crowds of hoodlums attracted to the place. Burning saloons were thrown open by the fleeing proprietors, and the mobs took possession of them. It was a free spree, and whiskey and wine were more plentiful apparently than the water which was being thrown on the burning buildings.

RUINS OF GARRISON'S BAKERY AND THE GLOBE HOTEL

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A gang of tipsy Italians swaggered along the avenue tossing bottles of champagne in the air, while the flames roared on all sides, and women crazed with fear went shrieking about the place. Men came out of saloons with boxes of cigars under their arms boasting of their thefts. Cash drawers and cash registers were broken open and their contents rifled by men who fought among themselves.

At one saloon, in Washington avenue, a mob of ruffians broke in the doors and almost gutted the place. Boys struggled with men in stealing bottles of liquor, and several fights took place on the barroom floor between toughs who sought possession of bottles of champagne. The result of this was that within a short time the streets were filled with brands were carried hundreds of feet ahead of the flames and ignited houses which were quickly burning as fiercely as those in the rear.

Knowing of no better way to check the flames, the citizens took kegs of powder out of a store and blew up Hellinger's Hotel and Samuel Myers' pier house, at the iron pier; but the attempt did not succeed, for the wind carried the flames across the intervening spaces and set fire to buildings one hundred feet away. Half an hour later the flames were raging in Ocean avenue, from Morrison's Hotel to Hellinger's Hotel.

A woman employed in the museum was burned to death, and a number of other people were injured. It is estimated that the fire destroyed half a million dollars' worth of property.

Rockaway Beach has always been regarded as an excursion resort of very much the same character as Coney Island. During the summer season, particularly on Sundays, the place is crowded with excursionists, and a thriving business is transacted.