The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1910-12-09
81 GIRLS BURNED
TO DEATH.
TRAPPED In FIREBOX, THEY LEAP
FROM THE WINDOWS.
80 Injured Are in Hospital.

Dovark. N. j., Nov. 26.-Twenty-
e!o girIs we're burned alive or crush
NV 20 death on the pavement in leap
tu e. from windows and fire-escapes
~ !3bin ten minutes this morning.
Tho tragedy occurred at the fire in
.,a factory building at Orange and
High streets.
The latest count tonight shows that
oo nf the 25 bodies recovered have
toon identified and that six girls are
still missing.
They may be among the unidentified
,ood or they may be i'm the ruins.
Tho COLLAPSE of a wall tonight in
+orrnpted further search.
Fifty Dersons were taken to hos
n;tals, OF whom two may die. Among
he injured is Joseph e. Slone,
deputy fire chief, who was overtaken
hy the falling wall and buried in
bricks and rubbish. He is badly hurt
but may recover.
The rush of the flames was SO in
credbly swift and threw such un-
reasoning terror into the huddled
working girls on the top floor that
tbe body of one was found still seat
on nm a charred stool beside the
machine at which she had been busy
When the first cry OF fire" petrified
her with fright.
Horrible as must have been the
tragedy in the smoke of that crowded
upper room, what befell outside in
the bright sunlight was more horrible
still. M... ..
The building was furiously inflam-
mable. and the first rush Of flames
had cut off all possibility of escape by
the stairways. The elevators made
one trip, but took down no passen-
gers and never came back. The on
w exit was by two narrow frees
capes, the lower platforms of which
were 25 feet from the street.
On these overcrowded and steep
exits, made hot by the flames from
the lower windows, pressed forward
q mob of women, blind with panic,
driven by the fire, and the others be-
hind them.
Out Of Windows to Death.
A net had been spread beneath the
windows, and the girls began to jump.
Like rats out of a burning bin"
was the way a fireman described that
pellmell descent They bolted out Of
the windows, rolled up ON the heads
of those below them and cascaded off
the fire-escape to the pavement sixty
feet below.
Some of them stood in the windows
outlined against the flames and jump
ed clear; others from the landings;
still others from the steps where they
stood.
The air was full of them and they
fell everywhere-into the net, onto the
necks Of firemen, and l. of them on
the hard stone slabs.
When the jumping ceased there
were eight dead in the street and the
cutters ran red with blood.
Seven more were so badly crushed
that they died in hositals. Fifty are
still under surgeons care.
Clouds Of smoke and showers OF
burning embers spread over the city
and rained down on neighborlng
roofs. As the news fiew-and it lost
nothing in the telling-panic spread
to other factories, where many of the
girls in peril had friends and rela-
tives, and several firms had to shut
down for the day.
Prayer i'm the Street.
Italian silk workers fell in the
street and prayed and lamented pit
ably. Priests and clerymen worked
their way through the press to give
the last consultations to those OF
their different faiths. Ambulances
and automobiles, Communicated fol
emergency service, were hurrying il
opposite streams to the hospitals ano
back again.
Before any semblance Of order
could be restored every police re-
serve in the city had been called out
and it was not until tonight that al
estimate Of the property loss coul6
even be ventured. The fire depart
ment now guesses $165, 200, but nc
statement from the owners and ten
ants is yet available.
Floor Soaked With Oils.
The building was a four-storJ
brick structure occupied on the two
lower floors by the Newark Paper Boy
Company and the A. A. Drake Paper
Box Company; on the third floor
where the fire started, by the Anchor
Lamp Company and the Aetna Elec'
trio Company, and ON the top fool
where the death list ran heaviest, by
the Wolf Manufacturing Company
makers of underwear.
The wooden floors were soaked with
Oil drippings from the machinery ant
the flames ate through them like
pasteboard. When they warped anc
weakened, the weight Of the machine
~ tore them from the walls and they
fell into the basement in horrible
tangle of hot iron and mangled hui
mainly.
Sadie Benson, an employe of the
Aetna Electric Company, was clean
ing an electric light fixture in
gasoline bath.
Gasoline Can EXplOdeS.
The gasoline took fire-she doe!
not know how-and trickled in
little rivulet of fame on the floor
where stood a full can of gasoline
The can exploded and the burning
liquid flew far and wide.
Lewis Cox, an employee Of the boz
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 hin
against the wall, but the girls up
stairs at their whirring machines
heard nothing.
Gertrude Maibauer, one of the girls
who kept her head and was saved by
jumping from the fire escape into
life net, told of what she saw.
X think there we're about 80 or y:
in VOLTS factory most of us operating