EXCLUSIVE STUDENTS' ROOMING HOUSE SAVED BY FIRE DEPARTMENT

Fire, attributed by janitor Sheehan to careless smoking, caused considerable damage to several first floor rooms of an exclusive Harvard undergraduate lodging house at 59 Plympton Street, Cambridge, on Saturday night, and injured one city fireman.

Fortunately, no students were in the three-story wooden "rat-house" at the time, although normally 17 socially prominent upperclassmen and a graduate student proctor occupy it. Most of the students, it was said, were out of town on just another weekend.

The fire department managed to confine the conflagration to two sitting rooms and a hall on the first floor, but it threatened for a while to spread throughout the entire building. Bedrooms located on the first floor also escaped damage, as did the Fly Club, nearby parent organization.

The injured fireman is Joseph C. Bedard, '40, who, witnesses said, was struck by debris and parts of the sofa hurled out of the window by his mates. He was rushed to the Cambridge city hospital in a police ambulance and found to have received severe back contusions. He was given treatment and held by the hospital for further observation.