Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1911-03-26

their whirring machines. the tables
before them piled with flimsy cloth,
the floor Uttered with lint, the air
itself full Of flying, inflammable dust.
The first rush of flames was al
most an explosion Operators died in
their chairs their lungs scared by in
haling flames. Others wsre crowded
into tho elevator shafts after the cars
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 first nets stretched by the
first company 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 support
them.
When the first breath of flame
curled over the edge of pile of
shirting on the eighth floor. five min
utes before quitting time. hundreds
were in line before the cashiers win
dow.
In the office building across Wash,
ington place scores of men detained
beyond office hours worked at their
desks One of them saw girl rush
to window and throw up the sash.
Behind her dashed @ seethng curtain
of flames. She climbed to the sill,
stood in black outline against the
light. hesitating, then, with a last
touch of futile thrift thrust her
chatelaine bag over wrist and jump
ed. Her body went whirling down
ward through the woven wire glass
of a canopy to the tagging below.
/ Her sisters, who followed, flashed
through the air like rockets.
1t was eighty feet from the eighth
! floor to the ground about ninety
| five feet from the ground floor 115
| feet from the cornice of the roof, and
1the upward rush of the draught and
the crackle of the flames drowned
their cries.
Six girls fought their way to 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 building. More than 100 feet
above the sidewalk they crept along
their perilous pathway to a swinging
electric feed wire spanning Washing
ton place.
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 rot
ten whipcord and they crashed down
to death.
A 13-year-old girl hung for three
minutes by her finger tips to the sill
of tenth floor window. tongue
Of flame licked at her fingers and fin
gers and she dropped into life net
held by flremen. Two women fell in
to the net almost at the same mo-
ment.
The strands parted and they, too
were added to the death list. A girl
threw her pocketbook, then her nat
ilti AhiS iiOili a. t'iAAh h'''' "'f
dow. 4 moment later her body came
whirling after them to death.
At n ninth floor window mar
and a 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 pane of glass
dropped in struggling tangle and
were crushed into a shapeless mass.
A girl on the eighth floor leaped
for a firemans ladder which had
reached only to the sixth floor. She
missed, struck the edge of the life
net and was picked up with her bach
broken.
From one window a Girl of about
10 years, a woman. n man and two
other women with their arms about