Arizona republican., 1904-06-16
A FRIGHTFUL WAKE.

In the wake or the SlOcum, as she hurried up stream was a line of little black specks marking the heads and bodies of those who had sought escape from the roaring furnace on the ship by throwing themselves overheard.
 A few of those saved by the small
 boats had on life preservers. At no time during the fire was there an op- Eortunity to lower the lifebo9ts CT to get the life preservers out from under-
 heath the seats. This perhaps gives an
 idea of the rapidity with which the flames swept the decks. It was an experience most horrible and that any escaped alive seems wonderful
 Through all the wild panic during all that inferno, with fire and smoke sur rounding them, the officers and men of
 the doomed boat remained at the r
 posts, but they were powerless to avert
 the catastrophe.
 The General Slocum got within if, y
 feet of the northwest point of North
 Brother island and there stopped in
 shallow water. It was just before she
 beached that the hurricane deck, the
 supports of which had burned away,
 fell with it's load of women and child ren, adding to the panic and horror on the deck below. Very soon after parts of the second and third decks also caved in, but before this happared the tug Walter Tracey had come along ide the burning steamer and dashed to ii. Many of the passengers were taKen off by the crew of the Tracy, which re- mained alongside the steamer until the
 tugs pilot house took fire. Many of those who leapsd from the Slocum were carried away by the current, even after she was beRched, and were drowned. The scene at North Brother island
 as described by the Tescders, was q | pitiful one. Body after body was wash ed ashore CT brought in by boats and added to the long row on the beach. | Fifty-three persons died there while ! the doctors were attending to tn m. As the bodies of the living and dead
 were taken out of the water, those alive
 were taken to hospitals on the island,
 or sent across the river to hospitals in | Manhattan. Here ambulances from al most all the hospitals in greater New | York and every other sort of con-
 veyance which could be found were put | into service.
 For hours the bodies of the burned and drowned drifted ashore on the is- | land and between 131st street and 13Sth
 street in Manhattan. Some came ashore
 still alive. Many of these died but some
 will recover.
 | The scene was pitiable in the extreme
 as the living and the dead were brought in. Rows of bodies were stretche d along the beach. Hysterical women and | frantic men went along the line look
 at one after another, searching for children and friends. Women with dis figured faces, their clothes partly strip | ped from them, were carried to the inn
 provised emergency hospital, crying fG- their children who had been torn from them in the mad rush when the boa: ! took fire.
 BLACK WITH THE DEAD. Meanwhile the Slocum burned to the
 waters edge. At 1925 o'clock, two hours and twenty-five minutes after the | fire was discovered, she sank. It is es-
 tinlated that there were then nearly 1OC | charred bodies on her decks. Just after l the steamer sank the water near by was
 black with bodies. The tug Fidelity sue | ceeded in picking up eighty-eight char
 red corpses in Hunts cove, off Rikers island, and carried them into the sound. None of these bodies, it is thought, can