The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-11-29
% GIRLS BURNED ALVF
0R CRUSHED ON PAVEMENT
Fierce Flames Entrap Girls in Fourth Story of a
Brick Factory in Newark, NJ, Causing Horror
and Death and Destruction

nufrylng IN opposite streams to the
hospitals and back again.
Before any Seinblance of order
could be restored every police reserve
in the city mao been called out and ii
was not until late that the estimate Of
property loss could even be ventured.
f1re departments now guess $685.
OV0' but no statement from the own
ers and tenants is yet available.
The building was a four-story brick
structure occupied on the two lower
floors OF the Newark Paper Box Com
pany and the a. A Drake Paper Box
Company; on the third floor, where
the fire started by the Anchor Lamp
Company and the Aetna Electrical
Company, and On the t~Op<fIoor, where
the death list ran heaviest. by the
Void Mfg. Co, makers Of of under-
year The wooden floors were soaked
with oil drippings from the machinery
and the flames ate through them like
~pastehOard. When they warped and
weakened the weight Of the machin-
cry tore them from the walls and they
fell into the basement in a horrible
tangle Of hot iron and mangled HUI
manity$ Sadie Benson, and employees
Of the Aeta Electric Co, was clean
ing an electric light fixture in q gaso-
line bath. The gasoline took fire
she does not know hoW-and trickIed
in a little rivulet of flame on to the
floor, where stood a full can of gaso-
line. The can exploded and the burn.
ing LIQUID flew far and wide.
Lewis Coke, an employe Of the box
factory on the second floor, was stand
ing in the hall and at the time Of the
explosion the shock was strong
enough, he says, to hurl him against
the wall, but the girls up stairs a,
their whirring sewing machines did
not hear the explosion.
Fireman Brown, who turned in the
alarm, was at work directly opposite
the building, cleaning the ID OF
the engine house, where he is station
ed. He saw a girl rush out of the
factory into the street, screaming and
Wringing her hands. There's fire in
there she cried, pointing back to the
hallway. Brown did not wait 10 ask
questions; he urned in an alarm and
then dashed up the fire escape. AL
ready he found forty girls at the
fourth-story window, some OF them
so dazed with terror that they had
not the wit to pull down the sashes
and climb out. Brown smashed in
the window and began pulling girls
through onto the fire escape. He
counted forty that filed past him.
h floor was far from cleared but
the heat a then grown SO intense
that the skin was beginning to crack
from his face. He pulled himself up
to look out q window, but then a
flash OF red-streaked smoke blinded
and almost sInothered him and he was
forced to drop into the lee of the
wall.
TT was the most horrible thing I've
Yer seen" he said afterwards. The
girls were hopping from the windows
like rats from a burning bin. I neye
saw a fire spread SO fast hen it got
started. Before We could get the girls
through the windows out onto the
fire escapes. the flames were licking
the wooden sashes.'
Fire Chief Astey laid the RESPONSE
bility for the loss Of life on delay in
turned in an alarm. He says that five
minutes were lost in trying to fight
the blazing gasoline with sane in Il
barrel. "If those precious minutes had
MT been wasted,' he almost Sobbed.
I'VE would not have lost one single
life"