The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-27

gotten down it. Imagine theatre in this town on fire under these same conditions. A building is put up, IS 0. K.'d by the State Labor depart ment and the local building depart
 ment, and we are helpless"
 The fire marshal developed the fact that the iron shutters on the win dows of the sevedth floor swung out across the little iron platform on the single fire escape and blocked II. yEfale both Harris and Blank, o@ness of the Triangle Company. and Samuei Bernstein, their superin tendent, insist cd that exis doors had not been lock ed other witnesses failed to clear this point.
 By order of the fire marshal, a. copy of all the testimony developed by his investigation was immediately for warded to the district attorney.
 New York, March 27.-With the tragedy of Saturdays Triangle Waist the 125 girls employed by the cloth ing firm of Manson & Jacobson. in a 12 story building on West 18th street, were thrown into a panic, today, by a cry of fire. A wild rush followed the false alarm, in which two of the girls were so badly injured that they were removed-to to a hospital.
 Miss Rosie Torshinski, who lost a .cousi min Saturdays fire, had fainted and fallen from her chair This alarmed a girl working close to her and she heedlessly yelled fire.
 New York, March 27-Facing the fact that there are not less than 15O loft buildings in Manhattan alone which are veritable fire traps and that a horror exceeding that of Saturday afternoon which cost 142 lives when the plant of the Triangle Waist Com pany was destroyed is possible at any time, immediate plans to remedy tnls situation were set on foot, today. At the. same time the district attorney and coroner's offices started an inves- tigation to place the blame for Sat urday's holocaust. It seemed certain, however, that the cause of the ire was due to the negligence of lnd1Vld- uals and lax laws, and that 1t will be necessary to appeal to the Legislature for action.
 District Attorney Whitman said that he intends to have the Grand Jury make a sweeping investigation which will be entirely independent of that of the coroner. He intends that the blame shall be squarely placed and If criminal negligence is proven the persons responsible will be punished. Today he assigned Assistant District
  bin to conduct the various sections Of the inquiry. He intimated that he was already in possession of information that indicated the inspection of office and factory buildings in the city has been criminally lax. The provisions of the law demanding standpipes, sepa- rate stairways, sprinklers, automatic fire alarms. etc, have not been com piled with in more than one-t third of the big buildings in the city.
 Whitman is already convinced that, had there been an automatic fire alarm in the building in which the Triangle companys plant is located, by the firemen in reaching the scene and that time would have enabled them to get up onto the upper floors and save many of those who later lost their lives, by means of the roof and the adjoining structures.
 Whitman said that Fire Commission e, Waldo and Chief Croker had cited partment had hampered the work of the fire department and he said that he was in favor of asking the Legisla- ture to give the fire department the same control over factory and office buildings that is now held over thea tres.
 Whitman's inspection of the build ing has shown criminal negligence on part. The big doors leading to the stairways were reinforced with iron and opened inward so that those who tried to open them were penned against them.
 Fire Chief Croker and Inspector Binns said they found bodies piled on the floor in front of the doors, showing how they had attempted to escape this way but were penned in by the pres sure behind them. The law specific ally states that such doors shall open wherever practicable' and the fire department officials unite in saying that these doors could easily have been arranged to open that way instead of inwardly. The law also says that. factory doors and exits must be left unlocked during working hours but the survivors of the horror unite in asserting that it was the rule of thA nronrietors Of the Triangle factory