managing editor. Mr. J. L. Shipley was connected with the Union for twenty years, for the last ten as owner of a majority interest. His administration was highly successful, and under him the paper acquired a wide influence.
      In March, 1888, there occurred at the Union building one of the saddest incidents of the city's history. A fire burst out in the basement. The flames spread rapidly to the stairs and elevator well. The editorial and composing rooms were on the fifth floor, seventy feet from the ground. There were good means of escape, and most of the editors and compositors had reached the ground in safety. But there seemed to be no immediate danger, and some dallied. Before they were aware, all means of escape had been cut off and they were imprisoned in the front rooms, with a raging fire behind them and a sheer descent of seventy feet to a stone pavement at their front. The department ladders could not reach them. In wild terror, six sprang from the windows and dashed themselves to death on the pavement below, while two perished in the flames.
      A unique feature of the city life is the Springfield Homestead a Saturday weekly of twelve to sixteen generous pages of news of the community and towns about, giving prominence to social events, and read by every Springfield family. As a fearless advocate of reform, it inaugurated the fight against the local gas monopoly, which resulted in reducing prices from $1.75 to $1.40, and led up to the great contest with the Bay State Gas Company. Besides this city weekly, the Phelps Pub-