The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1911-03-28

quitting time, hundreds were in line
before the cashiers window.
In the Office buildings across Wash
ington Place, scores Of men, detained
beyond Office hours, worked at their
desks. One Of them saw a girl rush
to window and throw up the sash.
Behind her danced a seething curtain
Of yellow fame. She climbed to the
sill, stood in blech outline against the
light, hesits:ring; then with last
touch of futile thrift, slipped her chat
elaine bag over her wrist and jumped.
Her body went whirling downward,
through the woven wire glass of a
canopy, to the tagging below. Her
sisters who followed, famed through
the air like rockets. Their path could
be followed, but their screams hardly
heard.
Many Feet to Ground.
It was IS feet from the eighth floor
to the ground, about 95 feet from the
ninth floor, 115 feet from the cornice
Of the roof. The upward rush of the
draught and the crackle Of the flames
drowned their cries.
Six girls fought their way to win
dow on the ninth floor, over the bodies
of fallen fellow workers, and crawled
out in single file on an eight-inch
stone ledge running the length of the
building. More than a hundred feet
below the sidewalk they crawled
along their perilous pathway to an
electric-feed wire spanning Washing
ton place. The leacers paused for
their companions to catch up and the
six grabbed the wire simultaneously.
1t snapped and they crashed down to
death.
Hung by Finger Tips.
A 17-year-old girl hung for three
minutes by her finger tips TO the sill
of a tenth floor window. A tongue of
flame licked at her fingers and she
dropped into a life-net, held by fire
men. Two women fell into the net at
almost the same moment The strings
parted and the three were added to
the death list. One girl threw her
pocketb ook, then her hat, then her
furs from the tenth story window. A
moment later her body came hurling
after them, to death.
At a ninth floor window a man and
a woman appeared. The man en-
braced the woman and kissed her.
Then he hurled her to the street and
jumped. Both were killed. Five girls
smashed a pane Of glass, dropped in
a struggling tangle and we're crushed
into a shapeless mass. A girl on the
eighth floor leaped for fireman's lad
der, which reached only to the sixth
floor She missed, struck the edge of
a life-net and was picked up with her
back broken.
Five From One Window.
From one window girl of about 13
years, a woman, man and two wo-
men, with their arms about one an
other, threw themselves 20 the ground
in rapid succession. The little girl
was whirled to the New York hospital.
She screamed as the driver and a po-
liceman lifted her into the hallway. A
surgeon came out, gave one look at
her face and touched her wrist.
"She is dead," he said.
One girl jumped into horse blank
ct, held by iremen and policemen. The.
blanket ripped like cneesecloth and
her body was mangled almost beyond
recognition. Another cropped into
tarpauin, held by tnree men. Her
weight tore it frora their grasp and
she struck the street. breaking almost
every bone in her body. Almost at
the same time a man somersaulted
down upon the shoulder of a police
man holding the tarpaul1n. He glanc-
ed of, struck the sidewalk and was
picked up dead.
Effort to Check Stampede.
Within the building a man on the
eighth floor stationed himself at the
door of one Of the elevators and with
a club kept back the girls, who had
stampeded to the wire cage. Thirty
were admitted to the car at a time.
They were rushed oown as fast as
possible.
The calls for ambu,ances were fol-
lowed by successive appeals for po-
lice, until 100 patrolmen arrived to
cope with crowd numbering tens OF
thousands. A hundred mounted po-