The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-03-27
al KILLED
IN FACTORY
LOFT FIRE

'ilt lIb w tHt pulHliiik BOihbb bAh VIZ
bodies kept on raining 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 min
utes 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 girl rush to a window
and throw up the sash. Behind her
danced seething curtain OF yellow
flame She climbed to the sill, stood in
black outline against the light, hesitat-
ing, then with last touch of futile
thrift, slipped her chatelaine bag over
her wrist and jumped Her body went
whirling downward through the woven
wire glass of a canopy to the tagging
below. Her sisters, who followed famed
through the air like rockets Their path
could be followed, but hardly heard 1t
was So feet from the eighth floor to
the ground, about 95 feet from the ninth
floor, ll5 feet from the cornce of the
roof, and the upward rush of the draft
and the crackle OF the flames drowned
their cries.
Six girls fought their way over the
bodies of fallen fellow workers 20 a
window OH the ninth floor and crawled
out iii single file to al eight-inch stone
ledge running the length of the build
ing. More than 100 feet above the side
walk they erept along their perilous
pathway to swinging electric feed wire
spanning Washington place. The lead
ers paused for their companions to catch
grabbed the wire simultaneously 1t
snapped like rotten whipcord and they
crushed down to death A l3-year-old
girl hung for three minutes by her fin
ger tips to the sill of l0th-story win
dow. A tongue of fame licked at her
fingers and she dropped into a life net
held by firemen Two women fell into
the net at almost the same moment
The strands parted, and the two were
added to the death list. A girl threw
her pocketbook, then her hat then her
furs from a l0thfoor window. A mo-
ment later her body came whrling after
them to death.
At ninth floor window a man and
woman appeared. The man embraced
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 a shape
less mass. A girl ON the eighth floor
leaped for a fireman's ladder, which
reached only to the sixth floor She
missed, struck the edge of life net,
and was picked up with her back brok-
en-. From one window a girl OF about
Ii years, a woman, man and two
women with their arms about one an
other threw themselves to the ground
in rapid succession. The little girl was
taken to the New York hospital in an
automobile. She screamed as the driver
and policeman lifted her into the hall
way. A surgeon came out, took one look
at her face and touched his hand to her
wrist: "She is dead he said.
One girl jumped into horse blanket
held by fremen and policemen. The
blanket ripped like cheesecloth and her
body was mangled almost beyond recog.
milton, Another dropped into tar
paulin held by three men. Her weight
tore it from their grasp and she struck
the street, breaking almost every bone
in her body. Almost at the same mo-
ment a man somersaulted down upon
the shoulder of policeman holding the
tarpaulin. He glanced off, struck the
sidewalk, and was picked up dead
Within the building a man on the eighth
floor stationed himself at the door of
one of the elevators and with a club
kept gack the girls who had stampeded
to the wire cage. Thirty We're admitted
to the car at time, They were rushed
down as fast as possible.
Mounted Policemen Charged the Crowd.
The call for ambulances was followed
by successive appeals for police until
nearly 900 bluecoats had reached the
scene. Five hundred patrolmen drew
line two blocks in each direction from
the burning building and COPIED with
crowd numbering tens Of Thousands
mixture Of the morbidly curious and of
half-crazed relatives and friends of the
victims. A hundred mounted policemen
found it necessary to charge the crowd
repeatedly to keep them back
Led by Fire Chief Croker, a squad of
firemen stormed the stairways and
gained access to the building at 7 o'clock
Beams of two seBrchlights from build
ings opposite, played on the building,
lighting the way Of the fire fighters as
they assembled to the top floors. Fifty
roasted bodies were found on the ninth
floor They lay in every position, some
so charred that recognition was impos-
sible some with the death agony still
on their features. A halfdozen were
nude, with their flesh hanging in shreds
burned away, with here and there limbs
burned entirely off and the charred
stump visible, were lifted tenderly from
the debris, wrapped in oilcloth and low
cred by pulleys to the street.
Across the street there rested on the
sidewalk 100 pine collins into which were
placed the bodies. As fast as this was
done, the collins were carried away in
patrol wagons, automobiles-anv kind
Of vehicle that could be pressed into
service-to the morgue at Bellevue hos |
pital and to the Charities pier morgue, /
opened for the first time since the Slo. |
cum horror. As each coffin was borne
away a policemen shouted to the hushed
crowd Of thousands. description of the
victim and Of the trinkets found in the !
clothing.
Grewsome Work of Recovery.
Long after the fire was out and every
window sill of the three fatal floors /
dripped rivulets of water. the grewsome |
work OF recovery went on. Two blind |
ing beams from searchlight engines be
!