The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1911-03-29
l43 PERISH IN FIRE
Fear-Crazed Girls Leap by
ScoresFrom 10th Story.

company mere was MOI an Out-
side Fire Escape on the Building,
Which Was Supposed to Be Fire
Proof-cisarette Smoking Blamed
For Disaster.
One hundred and forty-three souls
nine-tenths of them girls from the
East Side of New York-were crushed
to death on the pavements, smothered
by smoke or shrivelled to crisps Sat
prday 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 Waist
company on the eighth, ninth and
tenth floors of 10-story loft building
at % Washington Place, on the west
ern fringe of the downtown wholesale
clothing, fur and millinery district.
There was not an outside fire escape
on the building.
How the fire started perhaps never
will be known. A 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; 63 or more persons were
crushed to death by jumping and more
than 30 clogged the elevator shafts.
The loss to property will not exceed
100000.
Rain Of Death From Windows.
In such a horrible stream did the
bodies overflow from the windows
that the fire nets, stretched by the
first companies to arrive, were soon
gorged beyond capacity. Twelve
bodies weighted one net to the burst
ing point, but the bodies kept on tumb-
ling to the pavement, through meshes
that could no longer support them.
When the first breath of flame
curled over the edge of a pile OF
shirting on the eighth floor, five min
utes before quitting time, hundreds
were in line before the cashiers win
dow.
In the Office building 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. Be
hind her danced a seething curtain of
yellow flames.
She climbed to the SILL stood in
black outline against the light, hesi-
tating, then, with last touch of fu-
tile thrift, slipped her chatelaine bag
over her wrist and jumped. Her body
went whirling downward through the
woven wire glass of canopy to the
tagging below.
Flame Through Air Like Rockets.
Her sisters who followed famed
through the air like rockets. Their
path could be followed but hardly
heard 1t was S5 feet from the eighth
floor to the ground about 50 feet from
the ninth floor, 115 feet from the cor
nice of the roof and the upward rush
of the draught and the crackle Of the
flames drowned their cries.
During the early morning hours Sun.
day firemen who had begun to
wade through the water in the base.
ment before it had been pumped out
felt around in the water under
hole in the sidewalk vault lights OF
Greene street, hole made by falling
bodies, many times, but discovered
nothing beneath the surface of the
water One of the fremen happened
to look upwards while passing the
spot and so found two bodies of
young women, beneath which he and
his companions had walked many
times since daylight
Disaster Laid to Cigarettes.
Max Blanck one of the proprietors
or the Triangle company, told the re-
porters that it was against orders to
smoke in their lofts. The reporters
While clambering over the debris on
the eighth floor at the place where
the fire started saw amid the half
burned pocketbooks, shoes and other
bits Of clothing, scorched cigarette
box. In another part of the building
we're a number of half-smoked cigar
cites lying on the floor.
Around some of the bodies of the
men who jumped and in the pockets Of
their clothes were quantities of
matches. Chief Croker said that he
believed the fire was caused by
smoker who tossed either a match or
a lighted cigarette on the floor among
the piles of inflammable fiimsy stuff
used in the manufacture of waists and
lingerie.
Heads Propped Up In coffins.
Except in the cases. and there were
many of them, where bodies had been
burned until they were merely shriv-
eled black masses, the heads of the
dead were propped up in the uncov-
cred collins so that Identification
might be maze easier. At one time
DR.. Brown who was assisting the cor
oners timed entrance of the visitors
to the morgue and found that In the
earlier hours people passed on to the
pier at the rate of 100 a minute.