CLEARS HOTEL MEN IN PALM BEACH FIRE

Florida Commissioner After Inquiry Says That They Provided All Necessary Safeguards
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GUESTS’ LOSS $2,000,000
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Thousands of Dollars in Scattered Belongings Reclaimed---First of Victims Arrive HERE
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Special to The New York Times
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PALM BEACH, Fla., March 20---Thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing and valuables taken from the Breakers and Palm Beach hotels just before they burned to the ground here Wednesday were reclaimed by former guests of the hotels today.

Owing to the diversity of places to which baggage had been taken, the work of restoring property was greatly impeded, and tonight more than half the guests are still hunting some if not all of their possessions.

At least $2,000,000 worth of property probably never will be recovered. During both fires, the absence of fire lines permitted thieves to range at will thorough the hotels, helping themselves to whatever they chose. The principal loses [sic] reported have been of jewelry and furs. In many cases trunks were rifled after they had been removed from the building.

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Mrs. J. J. Brown of Newport, who figured in the Titanic disaster, lost much of her clothing and a valuable collection of music which she had managed to save when the Titanic went down. The music was in seven languages. She had been collecting it for twenty years. When attendants packed her trunk, Mrs. Brown said, they put in pin cushions from the bureau but forgot the music.