The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1910-11-30
HOLOCAUST IN A
CROWDED FACTORY
Fire Sweeps Building, CUT
ting Off Exits.
WOMEN DIVE FROM WINDOWS
On Fourth Floor, TO beCrnShed
on Pavement of Street
Below.
GASOLINE EXPLOSION CAUSE

New York, Nov. 26.-Twenty-
eight girls known to be dead, burn
ed, suffocated or crushed in leaping
from the windows; eight dying at
hospitals; at least Is missing, their
bodies supposed to be lying now un-
der tons of smoking debris, and SO
more seriously injured h the tragic
toll of a fire in an antiquated four
story brick factory at ZIG TO 1928
High street, Newark, n. j., to dag.
Inadequate fire escapes, a narrow
winding wooden stairway the only
other exit, and panic-blind, wild,
unreasoning panic-forced by riot
of smoke and flame through flooring
and walls soaked in the oil drippings
of so years, sums up the story.
The fastest and most efficient fire
department in the world could not
have prevented the tragedy. for
there was good fighting; not all the
brave men In the land could have
done more except in a slight degree,
for there were brave and cool men
and women who worked and dared
and did save some at the risk of
their own lives and bodies.
Sadie Benson, an employee of the
Aetna Electric Company, was clean
ing an electric light fixture in gas
oline bath. The gasoline took fire.
she does not know how-and trick
led in a little rivulet of flame onto
the floor, where stood full can of
gasoline. The can exploded and the
burning liquid few far and wide.
Lewis Coke. an employee of the
box factory on the second floor. was
standing in the hallway at the time
of the explosion. The shock was
strong enough, he says, to hurl him
against the wall, but the girls up
stairs at their whirring sewing ma
chimes heard nothing.
In point of time it was not five
minutes after the fire was discover
ed at 9:22 in the morning before
from the fourth floor girls were div
ing through the smoke clouds to the
sidewalk OF High street below or
down on the engine room extension
} to the rear or over on the Orange
street side into vacant yard.
They came, not one at a time,
but in groups, until as many as six
were seen to have jumped at one in
slant. The firemen, with their nets,
did the best they could when they
arrived, but to catch all was an inn
possibility.
So far as could be estimated to-
night, fully 81 young women took
the leap of SO feet to the ground in
front and 80 feet in the rear, and not
one escaped severe injury.
The rush of the flames was so in
credibly swift and threw such un-
reasoning terror into the huddled
working girls on the top story, that
the body of one was found still seat
ed on a charred stool beside the ma
chine at which she had been busy
when the first cry of fire petrified
her with fright.
The building was extremely lin
flammable, and the first gush of
flames cut off all possible escape by
the stairways.
A net had been. spread beneath the
windows, and the girls began to
jump like rats out of a burning
bin" as one fireman described the
.pell-mell descent.
They crawled out of the windows,
rolled down on the heads of those
below them and cascaded of the fire
escape to the pavement 60 feet be-
low.
Some of them stood in the win
dows outlined against the flames and
jumped clear; others from the land
ings; still others from the steps
where they stood.
The air was full of them, and
they fell everywhere-into the net,
on the necks of firemen and Is of
them on the hard stone slabs. When
the awful plunges ceased there were
eight dead in the street. and the gut
tiers ran red.
Eight girls were SO badly crush