Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
1916 - CANADIAN PARLIAMENT FIRE AN ACCIDENT.

FIVE LIVES LOST WHEN $6,000,000 HISTORIC AND BEAUITFUL STRUCTURE BURNS.

Ottawa, Ont., Feb. 4. - Two women and three men are known to have perished in a fire which swept the central portion of Canada's magnificent parliament building last night, destroying the chambers of commons and senate. Several others are reported missing and it is feared today they are buried in the ruins.

All night long firemen, police and soldiers fought to save the $6,000,000 structure, which is considered one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture on this continent. They were successful in saving the library building and the east and west wings of the main edifice.

Immediately after the fire started a report was spread that it was caused by the explosion of an incendiary bomb. The fire started in the reading room of the house of commons and several persons who were present at the time, including Mayor MARTIN of Montreal, asserted that it was preceded by an explosion which knocked down several persons. The bomb theory was, however, rejected today by Col. SHERWOOD, commissioner of Dominion police, who insisted that the conflagration was accidental.

The two women who lost their lives were MADAME BRAY, wife of H. A. BRAY of Quebec, and MADAME MORIN, wife of LOUIS MORIN of Benuce, Quebec.
The men, whose bodies are buried in the debris, are a policeman, an employe in the building and a waiter.
Among those reported missing is B. B. LAW, a member of parliament for Yarmouth, N. S.
MR. LAW is understood to have been at the house at the time the fire broke out, and has not been seen since.
J. B. LA PLANT, assistant clerk of the Commons, is also among those reported missing.

The parliament building included a central building with two wings, in all 470 feet in length with a tower, 220 feet high and library building in the rear. Many valuable sculptures, paintings and decorations adorned its rooms and corridors. It was erected in 1865 of cream colored sandstone on a bluff rising 150 feet above the Ottawa river.

The Daily Review
Decatur, Illinois
February 4, 1916

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