Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-03-06
BODIES ST|LL|N RUINS
Number Lost In School Fire Ma, Reach Hundred and Eighty.
WHOLE TOWN IN MOURNING.

IHvestl6atiohs Into cause of Horror
 Set on Foot - Use of Fire Escape
 Not Taught to Children In Drill.
 Inner Door Closed and Fastened.
 Cleveland, O., March 6.-The burning of the school at North Collinwood, with its attendant loss of scores of children's lives, has plunged so many of the homes of that suburb in mourning that the town is completely prostrated by its sorrow. Few families escaped the loss of one or more little ones, and even those whose children escaped death are nursing burned and crushed bodies oi helping to carry consolation to the homes of those more sorely afflicted. Up to late hour 164 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the school. There are the remains of more than twenty bodies still in the ruins that have been burned to ashes, in the opin. ion of Mir. Gould, the village engineer. This would bring the total number of lives lost to 184. One hundred and thir. ty-seven bodies have been identified.
 MT. Gould holds this opinion because of the difference between the number of bodies recovered and the number that have been reported missing.
 No Public Funeral.
 The disposition of the bodies of the victims was discussed at meeting at. tended by the mayor of collinwood, members of the board of education, the clergy and the undertakers. The idea of having public funeral of all the dead has been abandoned, though 1t is probable that where it can be done bodies will be grouped ins one church. The work of removing the identified bodies to their former homes was com pleted, and the undertakers set to work to prepare for the interments.
 In the homes of the afflicted citizens of the village the weeping parents were sustained by the presence of visiting nurses and women who volunteered to lend such comfort as lay within their power.
 To Bury Unidentified Dead.
 The appointment of relief commit tee by the Collinwood board of trade and town council is designed to care for the bodies of the unidentified dead as well as assisting the bereaved par. ents. Should any parent desire to un dertake the interment of one of the un- recognizable bundles of human flesh and bones, believing 1t may be his oi her child, they will be permitted.
 The remainder of the bodies will be laid side by side in the cemetery.
 In an effort to fix the cause and re sponsibility for the holocaust various investigations were set under way. Coroner Burke issued subpoenas for the seven surviving teachers of the school. The inquest was begun with the examination of number of wit. nesses without, however, developing any testimony that was beyond mere opinion.
 An Investigation conducted by the Collinwood school board, at which a number of survivors of the horror told their stories, brought forth these facts:
 Inner Door Closed and Fastened.
 That one of the inner doors at the west entrance of the school was closed and fastened while children were pill. ing up against it in the passage; wing partitions in the vestibule narrowed the exit by at least three feet; the flames came first from a closet below fho falr at At,a closet contained lime and sawdust; three little girls had been found hiding in play in the closet earlier in the morning; there was but one fire escape and that its use never was taught as part of the fire drill. Survivors among the teachers estimate that only two or three minutes passed from the time of the alarm until all escape was cut off. The building was fair sample of the kind of school construction in use in small towns. The halls and stairways were inclosed between interior brick walls, forming a huge fiue, through which the flames shot up with great rapidIty.
 On the question much discussed whether the doors opened inward or outward Fire Marshals Brockman and Feigenbaum examined the doorways and stated later that they were con vinced that they opened outward. Whether they were locked has not been determined. The fire marshals have testimony on both sides. JanItor HIrter still insists that the doors were open. It has been declared that the Ire was of incendiary origin, and this report is being investigated.