The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1911-03-30
new YORK FACTORY
fire is APPALLING
SCENE OF TRAGEDY
Victims, Mostly Girls, of Awful
Death in Flames, Are Now
Numbered at 141.

New York, March 2S.--Eighty-six
bodies of the al victims Of the fire
in the 10-story loft building on Wash
ington place Saturday night have been
identified. Sixteen Of the bodies were
men. There are II injured in h hos
pitfalls.
District Attorney Whitman started
an official investigation today to fix
the responsibility for the horror. Nc
arrests have been considered by the
district attorney of any person in con-
nection with the fire and none will be
made until the facts disclosed in the
investigation give sufficient evidence
for taking such steps this afternoon.
The building department was called on
for a report On the burned building
that every other department that is in
any way concerned also will be re-
CURED to make a detailed report.
Story Of the Fire.
One hundred and forty-one per-
sons-nine-tenths of them girls from
the asst side-were crushed to death
on the pavements, smothered in smoke
or burned to q crisp in d factory fire
Saturday afternoon in the worst dis
aster ever known since the steamship
General Slocum was burned to the
waters edge off North Brothers is
land in 1904.
Nearly all. tf not all, ot the victims
were employed by the Triangle Waist
company on the eighth, ninth and 10th
floors OF a 10-story building, at 20
Washington place, on the western
fringe Of the downtown wholesale
clothing, furniture and millinery dis
trict.
The partners of the firm, Isaac Har-
ris and Man Blanck, escaped unscathed
from the office on the 10th floor, carry
ing with them over an adjoining roof
Blanck's two daughters and a govern
ess. There was not an outside fire
escape on the building.
A corner on the eighth floor was the
fires point Of origin, and the three
upper floors only were swept. On the
ninth floor so bodies were found; 6S
or more persons were crushed to death
by jumping, and more than 80 clogged
erty will not exceed 100000.
Pedestrians gong home through
Washington place to Washington
square at 10 minutes to 5, were scat
tered by the whiz of something rush
ing through the air before them;
there was a terrible thud on the
pavement n a body fattened on the
flags. Wayfarers on the opposite side
of the street shaded their yes against
the setting sun and saw the windows
of the three upper floors of the building
black with girls crowding to the sills.
Victims Forced Ito Jump.
'Ron't jump!" Don't jump" yelled
the crowd. But the girls had no all
tentative. The pressure of the mad
dened hundreds behind them and the
urging of their own fears were too
strong. They began to fall to the
sidewalk.
Four alarms were rung within Is
minutes. Before the engines could re-
spond, before the nets could be
stretched or the ladders raised, five
girls had fallen from the eighth and
ninth floors SO heavily hat they broke
through the glass and iron roofs Of
the subcellars and crashed through the
very streets into the vaults below. In
an hour the fire was out, in a half
hour it had done it's worst; probably
the death list "a complete in 20 min
utes.
The building stands on a corner with
exposure on two sides, but the only
fire escape was interior, opening into
a light air shaft. In all there were
seven exits-the single fire escape, two
freight elevators at the rear, two pas
elevators in front and two
stairways.
Died Where They Sat.
The first rush of flame was almost
an explosion. Operators died in their
chairs, their lungs scared by inhaling
flames. Others were crowded into the
elevator shafts after the cars had
mage their last trip. Still others were
pushed off the Inadequate Interior fire
escape.
In such a horrible stream did the
bodies overflow from the windows that
the fire nets, stretched by the first
company that arrived, were soon
conn.,. ar b. ~ ~
les weighted one net to the bursting
point, but the bodies kept on tumbling
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 shifting on
the eighth floor, five minutes before
quitting time, hundreds were in line be-
fore the cashiers window.
In the office buildings 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 a sash. Be-
hind her danced a seething curtain of
yellow flame; She climbed to the sill,
stood in black outline against the light,
hesitating, then with a last touch of
futile thrift, Slipped her chatelaine bag
over her wrist and jumped. Her body
went hiring downward through the
ove wire glass of canopy to the flag
gins below. Her sisters VINO followed
flashed through the air like rockets.
It was 85 feet from the eighth floor
to the ground. about 95 feet from the
ninth floor, lis feet from the cornice of
the roof, and the upward rush of the
draught and the crackle OF the flames
drowned their cries.
Six girls fought their way to a win
dow on the ninth floor over the bodies
of fallen fellow workers and crawled
out in single file to an eight-inch stone
ledge, running the length of the build
ing. More than 100 feet above the side
walk they crep tlong their perilous
pathway to a swinging electric feed
wire, spanning Washington place.
,Wirs Snaps Like Cord.
The leaders paused for their com
panions to catch up at the end of the
ledge and the six grabbed the wire
simultaneously. 1t snapped like rotten
whip-cord and they crashed down to
death.
"a i~a-year-oid girl hung for 3 min
utes by her finge- tips to the sill Of a
tenth floor window. A tongue of flame
licked at her fingers and she dropped
into a life net the held by firemen.
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