The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-27
Especial from United Press. )

l Waist Company escaped unscathed from the fire which, on Saturday aft ernoon destroyed three upper floors of the big 10 story factory building at Washington Place and Greene street, was declared by veteran fire men, this afternoon, to have been miraculous.
 Those men who attended the first of half a dozen official inquiries in the office of Fire Marshal Beers united inc saying that the narrow, dark stairways. doors which opened inward and which were blockedR by the frantic workers, a useless inside and tons of inflammable materials piled in the factory, all united to hold the workers in a trap after the fire started.
 Marshal Beers had before him the owners of the factory. employees of building department, ,firemen and po- lice who were first on the scene and a number of persons who managed to escape after the fire was discover ed. He said that he intended to es- tablish the cause of the fire and just tions in the building. While the fire marshal was doing this, District At torney Whitman and Coroner Holz- hauser conferred and decided on the plans for their Investigations. The district attorney, his assistants and the coroner, went to the burned building, today, accompanied by architects, and had blueprints drawn, showing just how every exit was ar ranged; how the elevators were placed; the stairways constructed and the manner in which the exit doors were hung.
 Up to this afternoon, there were still 35 unidentified dead bodies in the morgue, most of which were sim ply charred forms bearing no re- semblance to human beings. The of- f1cial police record of the total num- Der of deaths is 143.
 That the actual responsibility for the holocaust rests with John Will Hams. state superintendent of labor, was the statement of District Attor- ney Whitman. after he had looked over the burned structure and in- spected the laws bearing on the case. He said that Williams department. under the law, was obliged to see that the factory buildings of the city were safe and, on February 4, of this year, one of the deputies of the state department 70. KID" this structure, despite the narrow stairways and dangerous exits. Whitman said that he has demanded from the state com missioner copy of this report which will probably be presented to the Grand Jury.
 The district attorney held a con- sultation with Judge O'Sullivan of the court of general sessions, and the lat ter told him he would order a Grand Jury investigation forthwith. One of the three Grand Juries, now sitting, will be assigned to this work and the court will enter an order. continuing it in office until the investigation is completed.
 Of f,.o %o a statement by Fire Marshal Beers, this afternoon. was either a match or a lighted cigarette Carelessly thrown under a cutting table beneath which were large number of scraps of light materials used for summer shirtwaists. It developed at the mar shals inquiry that employees were permitted to smoke while at work, al- though there were "No Smoking" signs on the walls.
 The fire marshal also found that there was a period of Is minutes be- and the sending in of an alarm. This was because the men on the eighth floor, where the blaze started,- first tried to exiting 1ish it themselves.
 After questioning the members of the Triangle Waist Company firm, their superintendent. and other wit nesses, Fire Marshal Beers summed up the result of his conclusions as follows:
 '"The fire started from a match or cigarette at 4:4O When it was mo- ticed, Samuel Bernstein and num- Der of employees got the fire hose and buckets and started to fight it. While this was being done, Edward Brown, the machinist, was trying to get the girls in line. to march them to the elevators and to the stairs
 ''But the poor things did not know what Brown meant, as most of them did not understand English. The con- fusion arising from different languages was terJble.
 '"The girls, the evidence shows, were at sewing machines. so close together that their backs almost touched. The stools on which they sat blocked the way and would have to have been pushed under the machines had there been a fire drill The girls were seized with panic. they stumbled and fell over these stools, and the whole scraming, tangled mass remained in this condition for a long time. There was only 15,000 square feet of floor space for the girls, tables, machines, etc.
 eff all the 15O had been marched to the little fire escape it would have taken three hours for them to have.