The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1911-03-27

1
wherever there was a show of life in the
quivering forms they were lifted into
ambulances and hurried away.
Law Students Rescue 40 Girls.
On the 10th floor of the building ad.
joining the burning structure is the
law department of the New York uni
veTsity Here 20-odd students were lis
tening to a lecture on law by Frank II.
| Sommer, former sheriff of Essex county,
New Jersey. Prof. Summer saw the
smoke, saw the human frebrands fall
ing like rain and saw the girls trapped
on the roof. He led his class to the roof
of the university quarters, There they
found two ladders They seized these,
bore them down two flights to the roof
of an intervening building, swarmed out
Of the windows and raised them to the
roof OF the burning structure. Forty
girls were brought down to safety.
Jimmie" Behan, traffic squad po-
! lceman, dashed up eight flights of stairs
when the fire was at its height, braced
his shoulders against barred door, and
burst it in. He found score Of girls
mad with fright. He ordered them down
the smoke-flled stairways, but they
baked. He used his club and beat them
down to safety. Not one of the num-
Der persisted. Bertha Weinthrup, 20
years old, jumped from the 10th floor
and was picked up unconscious, with
both legs fractured and internal in
iuries. She has chance for life. 4
boy, who jumped from one OF the up
per floors was caught by policeman,
who braced himself and held the Young
ster, practically uniniured, although both
fell to the street.
There were so many spectacular in.
cidents, so many horrible scenes, so
much pathos and suffering that the
minds of onlookers were stunned Hy-
man Mescher, a cutter, slid down the
elevator cable 10 stories and was found
alive at the bottom. standing in water
up to his armpits. His hands were lac.
Grated, his forehead was cut, but he was
otherwise unhurt. just how many trips
were made by the elevator men win per
haps never be aseertained. There are
varying reports of heroism at the elevat,
ors, but it was impossible at the time
to learn whether the lifts were operated
up to the last possible moment
Max Blanek, one of the proprietors of
the Triangle Waist company, said Sat
urday night: "How or where the fire
started | have no idea. There was no
explosion; of that | am sure. We who
escaped by the roof saw nothing of what
happened below us. Probably we were
the last persons to get out of the build
ing alive, By the time we reached the
gFrn,y,,I -hn+ baI Ea,v,,,nl
| cannot understand how the people on
the eighth floor could not have escaped
had they not been thrown into panic
They could have made their way out
by the fire escapes in the rear. This
means of rescue however, was cut off
from those on the ninth and tenth floors
by the flames" Blanck said he feared
that his cousins were among the vic.
Tins OF the fire. They were employed
on the floors below the office and Sat.
urday night no word as to their safety
had been received,
The coroner and the grand jury men
began their investigation yesterday be-
fore the embers died in the burned build
ing They touched shoulders with the
district attorneys men, building depart
ment agents, Fire Chief Croker, Commits
sioner Waldo and their helpers. There
will be thorough probing and fixing
of the blame, if blame there be and it
can be found, Said District Attorney
Whitman;
IF what Chief Croker tells me is cor
rect then someone is criminally liable
and whoever IL is, whether it be one or
a dozen, shall be prosecuted / never
saw anything more horrible in my life
There are many buildings in this city
in which even worse conditions prevail"
declared Commissioner Waldo. "0n this
building there was only one outside iron
balcony fire escape, with treads Is inches
wide and so constructed that persons
on the fire escapes by windows
would have to close the iron shutters
before they could escape. There were
two enclosed fire proof stairs, only sufIi-
GENTLY wide for one person to descend
at a time and with winding steps at
the turns.
Entrances to the stairs were blocked
by partitions From indications, gates /
and doors appear to have been locked |
at the time of the fire.
100000 Visit Morgue.
Two hundred thousand persons, the /
police estimate, visited the pier from the
opening Of the improvised morgue at /
l o'clock until late last night. At times
the line extended beyond 23d street, four /
blocks away, and tens of thousands i'm I
peeled by morbid curiosity only, were
turned away by the police.