The Sentinel=record., 1911-03-26

their whirring machines, the tables
before them piled with fiimsy cloth,
the floor Uttered with lint, the air It
self full of flying infiammable dust
The first rush of flame was almost an
explosion. Operators died in their
chairs, their lungs scared by inhaling
f1ame' Others were crowded into the
elevators shafts after the cars had
made their last trip. Still others were
pushed off the inadequate interior fire
escape.
In such a horrible stream did the
bodies overflow from the windows that
the fire nets, STRETCHED by the first
company to arrive, were soon gorged
beyond capacity.
Twelve bodies weighted one net TO
the bursting point, but the bodies kept
ION tumbling to the pavement, through
meshes that could no longer support
them.
When the first breath of flame curl.
ed over the edge of a pile OF shirt
ing on the eighth floor. five minutes
before quitting time. hundreds were
in line before the cashiers window.
In the office buildings across Wash
sngtcn 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 seething curtain
of yellow flame She climbed to the
sill, stood in black outline against the
light, hesitating, then with "a last
touch of futile thrift, slipped her
chatelaine bag over her wrist and
jumped Her body went whirling down
through the woven wire glass of a
canopy to the tagging below. Her
sisters who followed famed through
the air like rockets
1t was eighty-f five feet from the
eighth floor to the ground, about
ninety-five feet from the ninth floor,
ais feet from the cornice of the roof
and the upward rush of the draught
and the crackle CT the flames drown
led their cries.
Six girls fought their way to win
dow on the ninth floor over the bod
les of fallen fellow workers and
Ncrawled out in single file to an eight
inch stone ledge running the length d
the building. More than hundred
fleet above the sidewalk they crept
along their perilous pathway to a
ewinging electric feed wire, srannsnss
kWashington Place.
The leaders paused for their COM
panions to catch up at the end of the
ledge and the six grabbed the wire
Eisimul 1t snapped like rotten
whip cord and they crashed down to
death.
A thirteen-year-old girl hung for
three minutes by her finger tips to the
I,sill OF a tenth floor window. A tongue
lpf flame licked at her fingers and she
dropned into a life net held by the
firemen Two women fell into the
net at almost the same moment. The
strands parted and the three Were
added to the death list. A girl threw
her pocketbook, then her hat, then heI
furs from a tenth story window. A
moment later her body came whirline
after them--to death.
At the ninth flood window man
and woman appeared.
The man embraced the woman ano
Lissed her. Then he hurled her 70
the street and jumped. Both OF them
were killed Five girls smashed q
name of glass, dropped in struggling
tangle and we're crushed into a shape
lass mass. A girl on the eighth floor
leaned for a fireman's ladder, whlca
reached only to the sixth moor Snt
missed. struck the edge of life me-
and was picked up with her bach
broken From one window a girl o.
aho,,t 1s years. woman, man and
two women with their arms about one
onotber threw themselves to the
Ground in rapid succession. The lit
t,e girl was whirled to the New Yor'
ryospital in an automobile. She
scrsamrd as the driver and a police
man lifted her into the hallway. 4
surgeon came out, gave one look a