Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1911-03-27
One Hundred Forty-one
Bodies Found After
Factory Blaze.
MANY NOT IDENTIFIED
Ten-Story Structure, Housing
Hundreds, Did Not Have
Outside Escape.

New York, March 27.-Eighty-six
bodies of the 141 victims of the fire IN
the Triangle Waist company's plant
Saturday night have been identified.
Sixteen were the bodies OF men. There
are II injured in the hospitals.
District Attorney Whitman started
an official investigation today 10 fix
the responsibility for the horror. No
arrests will be made until the facts
disclosed In the investigation give suf-
fcient evidence for taking action.
STARTED on EIGHTH FLOOR.
II is now definitely known the fire
started on the eighth floor of the build
ing and began under the cutting table
IN a scrap heap, and is now thought to
have been started by cigaret.
Crowds began TO assemble early to-
Gay at the morgue to view the bodies.
80 in all. At least half the corpses
were unrecognizable and only small
trinkets and shreds of clothing will
help TO show who the unfortunate was.
SOME NEVER CLAIMED.
Some of the bodies probably will
never be claimed, the victims living
alone In furnished rooms or little fats,
many having no friends and few ac-
quaintances.
DISCUSS PROTECTION.
On Thursday night a mass meeting
will be held at Cooper Union TO agi-
tate for more adequate protection of
so-caIled fireproof buildings. The
United Hebrew Charities and the He
that they were ready to relieve any
distress caused by the fire.
Thei Independent Order Of B'na
Birth has opened a subscription-tupd
throughout New York. Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island and a por-
tion of Canada for the sufferers. Di-
rectors of the Metropolitan opera
house have offered the building free
for benefit performance.
WORST SINCE sLOCJM DISASTER.
New York, March 27.-One hundred
fifty persons-about one hundred TWEEN
ty-five OF them girls from the east side
were crushed TO death on the pave
ments. smothered by smoke, or burned
TO q crisp Saturday afternoon in the
worst fire New York has known since
the steamship General Slocum was
burned TO the waters edge off North
Brothers island in 1904.
Nearly all. If not all, OF the victims
were employed by the Triangle Shirt
waist company on the eighth. ninth and
tenth floors of a ten-story loft building
at 23 Washington place. on the west
ern fringe OF the downtown wholesale
clothing, fur and millinery district
The partners of the firm, Isaac Harris
and Max BlanCk. escaped unsca thed
from the 10th floor, carrying with them
over an adjoining roof Blanck's two
young daughters and a Eoverness
There was not an outside fire escape
on the building
CAUSE UNKNOWN.
How the fire started perhaps will new
or be known. corner on the eighth
floor was its point of origin and the
three upper floors only were swept On
the ninth floor so bodies were found:
60 or more persons were crushed to
death by jumping. and more than 80
clogged the elevator shafts. The loss
to property will not exceed 100000
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washington
ed by the whizz of something rushing
through the air before them; there was
? horrible thud on the pavement and a
body fiattened on the flags Wayfarers
on the opposite side of the street shad-
cd their eyes against the setting sun
and saw the windows of the three up
per floors of the building black with
girls crowding TO the sills. Don't
jump Don't jump," yelled the crowd.
But the girls had no alternative. The
pressure of the maddened hundreds be-
hind them and the urging OF their own
fears were too strong. They began 10
fall TO the sidewalk.
LIFE NETS TARDY.
-Four alarms we're rung within =
minutes. Before The engines could re-
spond. before the nets could be stretch
ed or the ladders raised. five girls had
fallen from the eighth and ninth floors
so heavily that they broke through the
glass and iron roofs of the sUb-cellaTs
and crashed through the very streets
into the vaults below In an hour the
FIRE was out; in half an hour IL had
done its work. probably the death list
was complete in % minutes
In all there were seven exits, the
single IRE escape. two freight elevators
At the rear vwo passenger elevators IN
front snd two stsirways. All OF them