The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1911-03-29


flame Others were crowded into the
elevator shafts, after the cars had
made their last trip. Still others were
fire escape.
In such 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 dropped into one net. tearing
it to pieces, then fell to the pave
ment.
When the first breath OF flame
curled over the edge Of a pile of
shirting, on the eighth floor, FIVE
minutes before quitting time, hun
dreds were in line before the cash.
ier's window.
In the Office buildings across
Washington Place, scores of men,
detained beyond Office hours, worked
al their desks. One of them said
girl rushed TO a window and threw up
the sash. Behind her danced seeth-
Ing curtain Of yellow fame. She
climbed to the sill, stood in black
outline against the light, hesitatins;
then with a last touch Of futile thrift,
slipped her chatelaine bag over her
wrist and jumped. Her body went
whirling downward, through the wo-
ven wire glass Of canopy, to the
tagging below. Her sisters who fol-
lowed, famed through the air like
rockets. Their path could be fol-
lowed, but their screams hardly
heard.
1t was S5 feet from eighth floor
to the ground, about 95 feet from
the ninth floor, 115 feet from the
cornice of the roof. The upward rush
of the draught and the crackle Of
the flames drowned their cries.
Six girls fought their way to a
window on the ninth floor, over the
bodies of fallen fellow workers, ana
crawled out in single file on an eight
inch stone ledge running the length
of the building. More than g hun
dred feet above the sidewalk they
I crawled along their perilous path
way to an electric-feed wire spanning
Washington place The leaders
paused for their companions to catch
up and the six grabbed the wire SIM
ultaneously. II snapped and they
crashed down to death.
A 17-year-old girl hung for three
minutes by her finger tips to the sill
of a tenth 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 string
parted and the three were added TO
! the death list. One girl threw her
, pocketbook, Slen her hat, then her
furs from the tenth story window. A
moment later her body came hurlinG
51LeT luSll, W OSdlu
At a ninth floor window man and
a woman appeared. The man en-
braced the woman and kissed her.
Then he hurled her to the street and
jumped. Both were killed. Five girls
smashed a pane Of glass, dropped in
struggling tangle and were crushed
into shapeless mass. a girl on the
eighth floor leaped for a fireman S
ladder. which reached only to sixth
floor. She missed, struck the edge of
life-net and was picked up with her
back broken.
| From one window girl Of about
l3 years. woman. man and two
women, with their arms about one
another, threw themselves to the
! ground in rapid succession. The
! little girl was whirled to she New
York Hospital. She screamed as the
driver and a policeman lifted her
into the hallway \ surgeon came
out. gave one look at her face and
, touched her wrist.
~."She is dead he said.
One girl jumped into horse
blanket. held by dremen and police
men The Handicapped like cheese
cloth and her body was mangled al
most beyond recognition Another
dropped into a tarpaulin, held by
three men. Her weight tore it from
their grasp and she struck the street.
breaking almost every bone III her
body Almost at the same time a
man somersaulted down upon the
; shoulder OF a policeman holding the
tarpaulin. He glanced off, struck
; the sidewalk and was picked uD dead.
Effort to Check Stampede.
Within the building a man on the
eighth 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 10 the car at time.
They were rushed down as fast as
possible.
The calls for am balances were fol-
lowed by successive appeals for po-
lice. until 100 patrolmen arrived to
cope with crowd numbering tens of
thousands. A hundred mounted po-
i!cemen had TO charge the crowd re-
peatedly to keep it back.
Led ~ Fire Chief Croker, a squad