St. Tammany farmer., 1911-04-01

futile thrift, silped her chateline bas
over her wrist and jumped. Her body
went whirling downward through
the woven wire glass of a canopy e
the tagging below. Her sisters, who
followed, famed through the air like
rockets. Their path could be follow.
ed, but hardly heard.
1t was IS feet from the eighth
floor to the ground, about 95 feet
from the ninth floor, and the upward
rush Of the draught and the crackle
OF the flames drowned their cries
HORRIBLE SCENES.
Six girls fought their way to q
window on the ninth floor, over the
bodies of fallen fellow-workers, and
crowded out, in single file, on an
eight-inch stone ledge running the
length of the building. More than q
hundred feet above the sidewalk
they craMled along their perilous
pathway to an electrict feed wire
spanning Washington Place. The
headers paused for their compan-
ions to catch up at the end Of the
ledge, and the six grabbed the wire
Sill ultaneously. It snapped like rot
ten whipcord, and they crashed down
to death.
A 13-year-old girl hung for three
minutes by her finger tips to the sill
OF tenthy floor window. A tongue
OF fame licked at her fingers and she
dropped into 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. The girl
threw her pocketbook, then her hat,
then her furs from the tenth story
window. A moment later her body
came hurting after them to death.
At a ninth floor window a man
and a woman appeared. The man
embraced the woman and kissed her.
Then he hurled her into the street
and jumpted. Both were killed. Five
girls smashed a pane of glass, and
dropped into struggling tangle and
were crushed into shapeless mass.
GIRLS LEAPED TO DEATH.
A girl one the eighth foor leaped
for fireman's ladder which reached
only to the. sixth floor. She missed,
struck the edge of a life net and
was picked up with her back broken.
From one window a girl of about 13
years, woman, man and two wo-
MEN with their arms about one an
other threw themselves to the
ground in rapid succession. The
little girl was whirled in to the New
York Hospital in an automobile She
screamed as the driver and a police
man lifted her into the hallway. A
surgeon came out, gave one look at
her face and touched her wrist. "She
Is dead" he said. 1
One girl jumpted into a horse
blanket held by a fireman and police
lf1en. The blanket ripped like
cheesecloth and her body. was man
gled almost beyond recognition. An
other dropped into a tarpaulin held
by three men. Her weight tore it
from their grasp and she struck the
street, breaking almost every bone
in her body. Almost at the same
time man somersaulted down upon
the shoulder of a policeman holding
the tarpaulin. He glanced Off, struck
the sidewalk, and was picked up
dead
Within the building man on the
ninth floor stationed himself at the
door of one of the elevators and
with club kept back the girls who
had stampeded to the wire cage.
Thirty were admitted to the car at
one time. They were rushed down
as fast as possible.
A GREAT CROWD.
The call for ambulances was fol-
!nNnH L.
ice until 500 patrolmen arrived to
cope with crowd numbering tens
Of thousands-a mixture of the
norbidly curious and the half-crazed
relatives and friends Of the victims.
A hundred mounted policemen had
to charge the crowd repeatedly to
keep it back. Led by Fire Chief
Croker, squad of firemen stormed
the stairways and gained access to
he building at o'clock. Two
searchlights from buildings opposite
lighted the way of the fire-fighters
as they ascended to the top floors.
Fifty roasted bodies were found on
the ninth floor. They lay in every
possible posture, some SO charred
that recognition was impossible. A
were nude, with the flesh
in shreds to the bones.
Women with their heads burned
away, with here and there a limb
burned entirely off and the charred
stump visible, were lifted tenderly
from the debris, wrapped in oilcloth
and lowered by pulleys to the
streets.
Across the street there rested on
the sidewalk hundred pine coffins,
nto which were placed the bodies.
AS fast as this was done the coffins
were carried away in any kind of a
vehicle that could be pressed into
service to the morgue at Bellevue
Hospital and to the Charities Poor
Morgue, opened for the first time
since the Slocum horror.
BODIES RECOVERED.
One hundred and six bodies had
been taken from the building and
wenty injured had been conveyed to
st. Vincent's Hospital at 10 o'clock.
Of these three died soon after ad-
mittance.
Others were not expected to live
through the night. Three of five wo-
men taken to Bellevue Hospital died
soon after admittance there.
On the tenth floor of the building
adjoining the burning structure is
the law department of New York
University. Here twenty-odd stu.
dents were listening to a lecture by
Frank H. Sommer, former sheriff OF
Essex County, N. J.
He saw the smoke and saw the
girls trapped on the roof. He lee
she class to the roof of the university
quarters, where they found two lad
iers. The boys seized these, bore
them down two fights to the roo
of an intervening building, swarmet
out of the windows and raised then
to the roof of the burning structure
Forty girls We're brought dawn n