The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-02-28
MOURNERS MEET DEATH
 IN BROOKLYN CHURCH
ELEVEN KILLED BY THE GIVING
 WAT OF THE FLOOR.
Congregation Awaiting in Silence the Arrival of the Remains of Their Dead Organist When the Disaster Occurs Rotten Beams the Gause-Death Due to, SufRocation, Victims Being Piled on Top of Each Other in a Mass sev- eral Feet Deep.

GIsA reGt 0GGps
 New York, Feb. 27.-EleVen persons were killed and upwards of fifty injur- ed, some probably fatally, by the col- lapse of the flooring of the Fleet Street African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in Brooklyn tonight. Of those killed ten were women, two men and ope child. The building was an an- cient ramshackle frame structure erect ed sixty years ago in the heart of the colored section of Brooklyn, on Fleet street, near Myrtle avenue. .ss:
 Arrangements had been made to- night to hold funeral services of Syd- ney Painter, one of the older members of the church, and the auditorium, which is on the second floor of the building, the ground floor being used by the Sunday school, was crowded with an audience of upwards of three hundred persons, of whom the majority were women.
 The congregation was waiting in si- lence for the arrival of the body, and Pastor Jacobs was standing at the all tar awaiting the summons to meet the funeral procession at the door, when a sharp cracking of timbers was heard, and in an instant the half of the audi < torium nearest the door collapsed, car < rying down more than q hundred per- sons, who were crushed i'll the wreck age of the flooring and peWs. A great volume of dust for few moments hid the victims from view The remainder of the audience, finding themselves cut off from the door, and expecting every instant that the rest of the flooring would collapse under them, fought madly to reach the windows, and in some instances persons leaped from them and sustained serious injuries.
 On the arrival of the police and ire men the work of rescue began. The persons on the portion of the floor re- maining intact who were u1injured were taken from the windows by means ]. of ladders. Those lying in the mass of wreckage on the lower floor could only be reached after the firemen had cut their way to them with axes. Out of the wreck ten bodies were recovered and taken to a station house and about thirty persons were removed to the Brooklyn hospital. where three women died soon after being admitted. All the ambulances in Brooklyn were called out and over a score of those hurt were able to go home after their injuries had been attended to. :,
 Heart rending scenes were witnessed in the station house, which was throng- ed with relatives and friends, who came to identify the dead.
 The dead are: Bertha Green, Teresa Ellis. Samuel Chisholm, Anna Bean, Anna Sullivan, Louisa Smith, Mary Scott. Two unidentified women, one unidentified child and one unidentified man.
 The cause of the collapse was the de cayed condition of the beams and sup ports of the flooring.
 Sidney l.. Painter, at whose funeral the congregation had gathered was Hhe organist of the church. About 150 seats in the front of the church had been reserved for the mourners who were to accompany the body. This led to the massing of the congregation in one place and a consequent concentra- fion of weight on the rotten floor beams
 After examining the bodies Coroner F'laherty pronounced death in nearly every case to have resulted from suffo- cation caused by the victims being piled oil top of each other in mass several feet deep. The coroner said that the church was condemned as un- safe several years ago, and that he in tended to prosecute a thorough inquiry to fix the responsibility for the disas- ter. tE
 According to Pastor Jacobs, money. had been raised for new church, the erection of which was soon to have been begun.