The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-27

-< November 26, 1910: Factory, % < Newark, 25. < New York March 26.-What will go
 down in history as the fire disaster of Washington Square entered upon its
 aftermath today with s2 of nearly 15O victims identified. The official death l list has been lessened rather than in- | cl eased
 | Revised count shows Al dead to- night with 12 women and girls at deaths door in the hospitals. All told, l 150 will perhaps conservatively cover | the death list.
 l Careful counting still rates the feminine victims, young and old, at approximately | ten to every one masculine.
 | Broad speaking the dead were Israelites and Italians living either on the Eastside or in a small Italian quarter near the scene of the fire.
 COroner's Work | With all the dead removed from the | building the coroner began an investiga- | tion into the disaster-one of several in- | quiries which could be conducted by city departments-aided by agents from the district attorneys office.
 | An inquest will be held and it's result will be placed before the grand jury. Many grand jurymen visited the scene ! and Tsst -'-ts, v rarney zs Whs'fnan nounced that those responsible for the | loss of life would be vigorously prose-
 cuted. On Thursday night a mass meet
 ing will be held in Cooper Union to agi- tate more adequate protection of so- called freproof buildings.
 The United Hebrsw Charities and the Hebrew Free Burial socities announced tonight that they were ready to relieve any distress caused by the fire. The in- dependent order of B'Na B'Rith has opened a subscription fund throughout New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and a portion of Canada for the sufferers. Directors of the Metro poltan opera house have offered the building free for benefit performance. Dr. George M. Price, chairman of an investigation committee appointed by the cloak, suit and shirt industry of New York last Septembe, to ascertain and remedy insanitary and protective condi- tions affecting members of that union, gave out tonight statement with long list of factory buildings which he says fail to comply with fire regulations.
 
 what was expected has happened" said the statement. Those who knew of the f1msy fire protection in the loft build ings of New York long ago predicted such disaster as occurred in Washing ton Place If however, this building was the only one of those unprotected the situation would not be so terrible. But the fact is there is hardly a large loft building in New York which is better pro- tected against fire.
 In a statement to the press, issued to- day, Borough President McAneny said that BOO firemen recently detailed by Fire Commissioner Waldo for the purpose, re- ported $500 buildings lacking adequate fire escapes. The building department all ready has investigated 700 of these 3500 cases and reported that only 10 per cent of them were in violation of the build ing code The Asch building, in which Saturdays disaster occurred. had not been reported among the cases reported by the fire department.
 Mr. McAneny urges a thorough revision
 of the code. leaving the provisions rel
 ative to fire escapes to a commission of
 building and fire experts to be appointed by the city.
 Morbid Crowd Held Back While a crowd of morbid thousands was held back by the police, firemen with grappling irons and fire hooks sought vic tins in the flooded cellar all forenoon. A steam pump emptied the cellar of water during the morning and the fire men believed when they rested at the dinner hour that they would find no more dead Tonight however they carried our
 another body, making three recovered
 during the day. The overcount last night
 was probably due to the checking off of
 a charred part of a body as a corpse. The work of the day showed no light upon the cause of the blaze. This prob ably will not never be known. A spark, from the motor driving the sewing ma chimes, shooting through the lnt-charged air of the operating room to a four-inch
 carpet of scraps on the floor could easily
 lave started a fire, but Fire Chief Croker
 was unwilling to say tonight that in his opinion it originated this way.
 Enormous Crowd
 Two hundred thousand persons, the po-
 lice estimate, filed in a line to the pier
 from the opening of the improvsed
 morgue at 1 o'clock this morning until
 late tonight. At times the line extended
 beyond Twenty third street four blocks
 away and tens of thousands of persons.
 impelled by morbid curiosity were turned
 away by the police.
 Nearly a hundred collins lay in long
 row upon the pier, waiting removal or
 Identification of the charred bodies they
 contained.
 Forty human forms so burned, black
 ened and distorted that they cannot be
 recognized. lay covered by white can
 vas in plain pine coffins, apart from
 those less badly mangled Unless they
 are identified by the trinkets and jew
 elry found on their blackened limbs they will fill single grave of unknown dead A signet found clinging to shred of
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