The free lance. (Fredericksburg, Va.) 1885-1926, 1911-03-28
RU|NSY|ELDBOD|ES
Crowds Storm MOrguo to
Identify Fire Victims.
KNOWN DEAD NUMBERS las
Grief Crazed Relatives Become Hys-
terical Identifying Victims OF
Awful Holocaust in
New York.

AN$W
New York, March 27.-Searchlights
on fire apparatus played into the holes
that once were windows OF the Asch
building, at Washington place and
Greene street. until daylight. and IRE
men carrying lanterns searched the
ruined shirtwaist factory floors. The
ilremen found three more bodies
which brought the number of dead up
10 AS.
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
we're found; sixty-three or more per
sons we're crushed to death by jump
ing. and more than thirty cloggei the
elevator shafts The loss to property
will not exceed 100000.
First Danger Sign Hideous.
Pedestrians going home through
Washington place to Washington
square were scattered by the whiz OF
sometime rushing through the air be-
fore them-there was horrible plop
on the pavement and body aattened
on the flags.
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 build
ing black with girls crowding to the
stills.
Don't jump Don't jump yelled
the crowd. but the girls had no alter
native. The pressure of the maddened
hundreds behind them and the urging
of their own fears were too strong.
They began to fall to the sidewalk in
a terrible rain OF flesh and blood
Four alarms were rung within fifteen
minutes. Before the engines could re
spond and before the nets could be
stretched or the ladders raised. FIVE
girls had fallen from the eighth and
ninth floors so heavily that they broke
through the glass and iron roofs OF
the sub-cellars and crashed through
the very streets into the vaults below.
In an hour the fire was out; in half
an hour it had done its worst; prob
ably the death list was full in twenty
minutes.
Firemen who had begun to wade
through the water in the basement
before it had been pumped ont felt
around in the water under a hole in
the sidewalk vault lights Of Greene
street, a hole made by falling bodies,
many times, but discoy cred nothing
beneath the surface of the water. one
of the firemen happened to look up
ward while passing the spot and so
found two bodies of young women
beneath which he and his companion
had walked many times. The two dead
girls were lying on a lattice OF steam
pipes about four feet below the hole
in the vault lights. The girls bodies
had broken the concrete and glass
vault lights Of the pavement and had
fallen through the sidewalk hole to
the steam pipes.
Twelve hours later firemen working
in the cellar OF the building came
across a body at the foot Of the shaft
of the two freight elevators on the
north side Of the building. 1t was so
badly burned and mutilated that the
fremen were unable to tell whether
It was the body of a man or that OF
a woman.
Find Fragments Of Bodies.
Charles Aichman, of fire patrol No.
u. found part Of an arm and shoulder
near the north end of the cutting
room of the eighth floor, where the
nre started beneath a pile of west plas-
ter and bits of warped sewing ma
chimes. Shortly after this hand was
found on the window ledge of the
fifth floor, evidently broken from the
wrist of a falling body. Two charred
arms and a burned foot were found on
the ninth floor.
The windows of the burned floors
begin so close to the floor that the
sills are just a few inches below the
knees Of one standing by the window.
II was evident that many girls, there.
fore, whether they wanted to Jump or
not. must have been showed out OF
TIE windows by the press behind
them.
Max Blanck, one Of the proprietors
of the Triangle company, said 1t was
against orders to smoke in their lofts.
The reporters while clambering over
the debris on the eighth floor where
the fire started, saw amidst the hall
burned pocketbooks, shoes and othel
bits of clothing. a scorched cigarette
box. In another part Of the building
we're a number of half-smoked cigar
cites lying on the floor.
Chief Croker said he believed the
fire was caused by smoker who
tossed either a match or a lighted
cigarette on the floor among the piles
of lnfamable fiimsy stuff used in the
manufacture of waists and lingerie.
When tho body found at the foot
of the freight elevator shaft had been
sent to the morgue there was a row
Of fifteen pine collins stretched along
the south side Of the coYered pier and
sixty-nine along the north side, each
containing body which in most cases
was unacceptable.
The relatives or close friends who
were looking for their dead at the
pier morgue began to come to ths