Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1911-03-27
Two Hundred Thousand Persons File
from Improvised Morgue Contain
ing Fire -Charred Bodies.
IDENTIFICATION BY JEwER'
Single Grave Will Be Last Resting
Place of Many.
FATHER ATTEMPTS TO KILL Sci
Ring Points Out Dead Girl 70 Sweet.
heart.
WEEKS WAGES THREE DOLLAR
ImprOvIsed Hospital Ward Fitted Up
on Pier TO Care for Hystertcal
wOmen-HospitnI Doors
Are stOrmed.

Are StOrmed.
NEW YORK, March, 2s-what will go
down in history as the fire disaster Of
Washington square entered upon its after
math tonight with elghty-two of nearly l5O
victims identified. The official death list
has been lessened rather than increased.
revised count shows 14l dead tonight
with twelve women and girls at deaths
door in the hospitals. One hundred and
fifty all told, VIII perhaps conservatively
cover the casualties.
Two hundred thousand persons, the DO
lice estimate, filed in a serpentlne line to
the pier from the opening Of the impro-
vised morgue at ! O'Clock this morning
until late tonight. At times the line ex-
tended beyond Twenty-third street. four
blocks away and tens Of thousands, i'm
PEELED by morbid curiosity were turned
away by the police.
Nearly a hundred coffins lay in a long
row upon the pier, awaiting removal or
Identification Of the charred bodies they
contained. oFrty human forms. so burned
blackened and distorted that they cannot
be recognized, lay covered bt white can
vas in plain pine coffins apart from those
less horribly mangled Unless they are
Identified by the trinkets and jewelry
.
I'm a grave OF unknown dead.
signet ring. found clinging TO a shred
Of flesh on a little girls finger. made
Identification possible where all other
means would have failed. A man who had
stood in line six hours wandered aimlessly
among the bodies, seeking his missing
daughters until with q groan he identified
a heap of charred clothing as their gar
ments. He collapsed and sought to kill
himself but the police prevented him, and
lhe continued the search for his wife also
missing.
Girl Finds Sweetheart.
A pale girl bent over a misshapen mass
long and doubtingly. Then. with a final
effort, she grasped a hand which protruded
from beneath the canvas, and, with a
shrek. collapsed. The biackened mass,
she sobbed, had been her sweetheart, to
4 whom she had become engaged the night
before the disaster ring on his finger
told her of his identity. She asked IL the
dead man had had watch. They brought
it to her; she opened 1t and gazed at her
own features.
Twenty sicilian women became hysteri-
cal upon recognizing their kin in the pine
coffins. A man whose face was marked
by a scar of flame found his brother among
the dead The two had worked side by
side pouring water upon the fire. A cutter
Identified his dead sweetheart by their
engagement ring and her purse. 1t CON
talned her weeks wages SS. The bodies of
two sisters, horribly mangled. sat propped
up in their coffin, while a sobblng brother
left them to search for his aged mother
who also had pertshed. The fire had left
him without a relative.
raA
floor, blackened hand stilI cIenched a
pitiful purse in it's grip. They pried the
fingers away and released the bag. II
contained a small sum of money keys and
a receipt made out to A. S. Cimmella. A
young man found his sweetheart, burned
and backened, and fell across the coffin
in faln.
Women Sob and Faint.
sobbing women became so hysterical
that an improvised hospital ward was
fitted up on the pier, manned by nurses
from Bellevue hospital Hysteria ran riot
and nurses were busy tending those who
, collapsed.
All day there rumbled a steady stream
of dead wagons along the approach TO the
pier taking away those that had been
claimed. The air went stale with an odor
] OF burnt flesh and for a time the pieI
was cleared. During the brief recess
heavy-eyed attendants rearranged the
baskets Of personal effects belonging tC
, the victims There was more than A5O
In cash in the pockets and purses of tn,
dead. One woman had $500 in her stocking
Hospital doors were stormed by hundreds
during the day and night. A cutter, who's,
sister worked a few feet away from hin
In the doomed factory, inquired for her
70 every half hour at st. Vincents hospital
70 She died between his visits, and he be
L came so violent that the police had t,
e restrain him. He and she had planned I,
s welcome their aged parents from Russl,
e to the new world this week The parent
s are on the now.
II woman and a girl, who lay dylnl
d side by side, whispered to sympatheti
II nurses their stories of the disaster. rush
II ing their words in a rapid stream a
d though fearful that death would chec
Il the recital. The girl died murmuring he
a gruesome tale; the woman fingered becam
e delirious and begged the nurses to releas
'r her.
Why am / here? What have / done?
'e she moaned as she sank back into
u troubled sleep, which the surgeons sal
~ would be her last