Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1911-03-31
NEW YORK FIRE HORROR
I48 Persons, Mostly Women, Perish in
Factory Fire--SOme Cremated,
Others Jump to Death.

eight persOns-133 of them girls and ell
derby wOmen-were crushed to death on
the ~pavements, smothered in smoke or
shriveled crisp in a factory fire Saturday
afternoon in the worst disaster New
York has known since the steamship
General Slocum was burned to the wa
ter's edge off North Brothers Island in
81
One hundred and ~forty-one bodies had
Teen removed from the ruins at mid
night, and seven of the forty injured had
died in hospitals. Grief-craZed relatives
beseiged the morgue as the bodies were
laid out.
Nearly all, if not all, the victims were
employed by the Triangle ShirtwaIst
Company, on the eighth, ninth and tenth
floors of a ten-story loft building at No
% Washington place, on the western
fringe OF the downtown wholesale cloth
ing, fur and millinery district. The part
Eers of the firm, Isaac Harris and Max
Blanck, escaped unscathed from the of
flee on the tenth floor, carrying with
them over an adjoining roof Blanck's
two young daughters and a governess.
There was not an outside fire escape on
the building.
How the fire started will perhaps never
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 fifty bodies were found. Six
ty-three, or more, persons were crushed
to death by jumping, and more than
thirty clOgged the elevator shafts.
Rain of Flesh.
Pedestrians going home through Wash
ingtOn Place to Washington Square, at
ten minutes to 5, were scattered by the
whizz Of something rushing through the
air before them; there was a horrible
thud OH the pavement, and a body fiat
tened on the stones. Wayfarers on the
opposite side of the street shaded their
eyes against the setting sun and saw the
windows of the three upper floors of the
building black with girls crowding to
the stills. There were no fire escapes.
"Don't jump! Don't jump!" yelled
the crowd, but the girls had no a~lterna-
tive. The pressure of the maddened hun
dreds behind them and the urging of
their own fears were too strong. They
began to fall to the sidewalk in a terri
bic rain of flesh and blood.
Four alarms were rung within fifteen
minutes. Before the engines could re-
spond, before the nets could be stretched
OF the ladders raised, five girls had fallen
from the eighth and ninth floors so
heavily that broke through the very
streets into the vaults below.
Done in Few Minutes.
In an hour the fire was out; in half
an hour it had done its worst. Probably
the death list was full in twenty
minutes.
The building stands on a corner with
exposure on two sides, but the only fire
escape was in the interior, opening on
a light and air shaft. In all there were
seven exits-the single fire escape, two
freight elevators at the rear, two pas
seneer elevators in the front, and two
stairways. All of them proved almost
useless and practically all who escaped
either clim bed to the roof and scrambled
thence to the roof of the building occu-
pied by the American Book Company,
adjoining, OF fled in the first rush for
safety before the crush and the smoke
grew too thick.
Fire Nets Gorged.
Seven hundred persons, 500 of them
women, were employed by the shirtwaist
They sat in rows at their
whirring machines, the tables before
them piled with flimsy cloth, the oor
Uttered with lint, the air itself full of
flying infammable dust. The first rush
of fame was almost an explosion. Ope-
rators died in their chairs, their lungs
scared by inhaling flame. Others were
crowded into the elevator shafts after
the ears had made 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 COM
pany to arrive, were soon gorged beyond
capacity. Twelve bodies weighted one
net to the bursting point, but the bodies
kept on tumbling to the pavement,
through meshes that could no longer sup
port them.
When the first breath of fame curled
over the edge of q pile of shifting on the
eighth floor. five minutes before quitting
time, hundreds were in line before the
cashiers window. In the office buildings
across Washington place scores of men,
detained beyond office hours, worked at
their desks.
One OF them saw a girl rush to the
window and thrown up the sash. Be
hind her danced a seething curtain of
yellow flame. She climbed to the sill,
stood in black outline against the light,
hesitatiug, then with a last touch of flu
tile thrift, slipped her chatelaine bag
over her wrist and jumped.
Her body went whirling downward
SAYS Japan PROTESTS