New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1885-05-22
KILLED BY THE SMOhE.
FIFTEEN LIVES LOST AT A FIRE
WORKING WOMEN sMoTHERED IN PRINT "0''N
INCIDENTS OF nERoIsM.
rrvop .rH TO THE TRIBUNEI

noon 'o-'i, , 80 &c., WORKS No 10 sxth-st. Two hours
ter most of them dead, ten OF them suhoVaeu Oy
,hn smoke their bodies shrivelled ana scorcheu
G beat and fire that cut oescape with scarcely warm
ING IL would hard to construct more perIec ue"
,roo II was on the top hOOr, Wl'h
three windows in front and one In tue rear, "H0i0
an L of the building room. 1t was entered irom
narrow stairway in the rear, which wound arouhu 'no
elevator WELL fenced in with thin wooden lattice WORK
The second floor held the heavy presses boy brought
mn Gallon can filed with benzine to clean the lOrhs'
Nobody knows the cause but something caused the pen
zine to explode the press next the elevator web
The burning fluid spread to the ink-we OF the press anu
to n drying rack filed with freshly printed
sheets next the elevator Sullivan, the ProPIie-
Tor saw it. caught up lou
heavy brown sheets of paper to smother 1t out In an
instant all in the it was useless MY Gou'
cried Sullivan "tell the girls up stairs" HIS Orother
few up the stairs the bindery The flames were there
os Quickly as he climbing up the latticework OF inc
elevator ike a fash The girls panic stricken Inc
flames cut off the only escape They rushed to the 'front.'
windows The flames reached forward and caught AZ
tlem Five them leaped from the windows ana were
crushed TO death died In a few mnntes.
great crowd meantime had gathered ana looked oh
with Oroans of horror or warning, but pOweress to help
One or two tried to catch the girls as they
fell but were only hurt themselves The men from 'ne
mex, building had caught up long rope kept FOR such
uses and going the roof held 1t over window Johh
Sullivan saw it helped first and then another TO
catch IL and they were safely lowered. BY that time
the rest were quiet and crouching IN the corners
or on the Aoor rapidly suocating. Sullivan then caught
the rope but had barely started downward when the
fame reached and burned the off and he FELL
never breathing afterward. Before this however, an
other printer who came up with Sullivan had romem-
bered syght the front and above the side OF the
room Below it binders bench pied hlgh WIN
stock The printer mounted on this, threw open the
skylight and easily climbed out on the roof Several
BOYS and girls followed but Sullivan and the rest were
foo excited to notice this OF escape
by which every might easily have been saved, ior
once on the roof they could have walked square In any
direction away from the fire and out OF the remotest
danger An alarm by this time had brought the hre-
men, SO well did they work that in five minutes they
were the building and 60 to the nfth hoor
Here the bodies Of ten girls found. Some were
shrivelled by the heat till their skin pulled OIL Ihe
tragedy had been consummated in the shortest possible
time Not over twenty minutes had elapsed since lhe
explosion of the benzne The spread through the
citv with electrical rapidty and the street soon
packed with sympathetic crowds Parents sought for
their dead children with blanched faces The dead were
borne out by remen and laid out for recognition or
the few minutes before being removed TO the morgue
1t was then o'clock This city has had its share OF
shocking disasters but never has one happened where
such ptfu loss of life occurred that Of today
with so little occasion.
Fire Chief wisby said after the fire. The house is not
burned out in fact the fire chiefly in the fifth
story In the smoke l counted ten girls lying
upon benches tables and other things and some on the
floor Their clothing not burned but the SIX in on
the backs of their hands scorched 1t was terri
bic sight, the worst in my experience The
girls lay where they had fallen In their helpless DO
bpair"
Sullivan the heroic Young man who his lifc
cousin of the proprietor did for the frightened
girls could only told by the gmpses that could be
seen of him at the smoking windows, whence some OF
the girls had already eaped to their death j. r. Kins-
ley's son. and his foreman, were the ones VINO
procured the rope and lowered 1t to Sullivan.
Sullivan was being lowered and was half way down
when the flames shot ont of window and he fell head
foremost the sidewalk in the presence OF horThed
crowd OF people who had witnessed his herosm. When
the girls were Jumping from the window large coored
man herocaly tried to catch them and so break the
force of the fall nearly lost his own life in the at
tempt
As well as can be ascertained there about fits
occupants OF the building, Of whom twenty or twenty
five were girls the fifth story The boys were on the
second and third floors and this accounts for their
cape All agree that the spread of the flames was
almost Instantaneous Mr. Kinsley, VINO ran
10 his upper floors in the rear where
the flames were in danger Of coming through his
window, found the smoke so dense that he had TO
crawl the floor reach his window ana close it, All
this time there avenue OF escape which the
terror stricken girls did not think Of II was the open
ing in the which they could easily have reached
from bench standing beside the wall. The fire was
almost Insignificant The wooden stairway around the
elevator shaft ia not burned to be useless even
unsafe yet the flames to have spread through all
the floors and TO have ruined all the paper and other
light combustible matter. Mr.. Sullivan estimates his
loss at from SC 900 $4,000 with ample insurance
The loss the building Is slight.
The at Hablg's undertaking establishment,
where the bodies taken and where the friends
and relatives to identify then were OF the most
painful character In case policeman OF cOYlng-
ton Ky identified his sisters Lizzie and Doe Handel
who were twins. Mrs. Meters found the body OF her
daughter and had to led away. Mrs Leaban had the
awful experience OF finding her three daughters among
the dead. The fatal list as now made up is:
KILLED.
BELL Anna age fortyx, the wife Of David p. Bell, of
HASDS DoIIiE age twenty, of No. 713 scOttst, Cow
HASDEI LIZZIE twin sister Of the above, living at
JOKES FlNSIE age twenty-five Her home is at Liberty
IEASSS, DELLA age twenty three, Of No 2oG sixthst.
LEABAS MARY age sixteen sister OF Katie and Della.
MEIERs LIZZIE, age 16, Of No 345 Broadway.
MCINTYRE. ANNE, age 90, Of No. 90 East Sixth st.
PUTNAM, KATIE, age Twenty-Five
PUTsAM MAnY age nineteen sister % Of the the above
WYNN, LILLE, age twenty, OF No ss East Fltth-st
INJURED.
B5 WILLIAM os T % lie w%s pr printer
crushed and burned and will probably die
HAWKES. JOSIE leg broken: . u, Nil, ,ro,a,., ,,o
snEPMERD, MAMIE head badly cut she lives on Har-
rison-st
Already preparations are being made for the
relief OF the families Of the victims. most
Of whom the support OF dependent parents.
c. Braam, who had charge of the papercutting
machine in the building on the second floor,
made the following statements a. working
at my machine when the fire started. 1t broke
out at the elevator right below the dry-rack,
where the freshyprined sheets hung dry on the
second floor When blaze ran up the stairs
fourfk