The Mobridge news. [volume] (Mobridge, Walworth Co., S.D.) 190?-1917, 1913-08-01
So SHOP WOMEN
ARE ~|NC|NERATED;
SCORES INJURED
BINGHAMTON, NJ. v, SCENE OF
HORRIFYlNG SACRIFICE OF
LIFE WHEN FACTORY is
BURNED.
NO CHANCE TO SAVE THE
VICTIMS FROM INFERNO
Workers Penned on Top Floor Are
Shut of From All the Escapes
Heat So Terrific That Fire
men Cannot Be of Any
Assistance.

B~inghamton, \. Y, July 24.-The
exact number Of persons who persisted
in the fire in the factory of the Bling
hamton Clothing Company may never
be known. The list of employees is
in the ruins. Only six of the bodies
recovered have been identified.
A careful estimate today places the
number of those in the building at the
time the fire started at Ill. OF these,
only SO are known to have been saved.
The victims were chiefly and
girls.
Thirty in Hospital.
More than a score Of bodies have
been recovered. In the city hospital
and in private institutions are thirty
injured. Some two-score persons are
known to have escaped as by a mir
acle from the building, which burst
Into flame like a tinderox and became
a roaring furnace in almost no time
after the first alarm was sounded.
About 1875 persons were in the fac
July WHICH, lHt IIc DIOht Oul, L lObC
un%accounted for, or most Of them, are
believed TO be in the ruins of the
structure.
B~ystanders Are Frantic.
Around the scene of the disaster
thousands watched the workers in the
glare of three searchlights, many in
the great throng being restrained only
by the police from rushing into the
ruins for the bodies of relatives or
friends.
Water in many streams was poured
into the fiery pit that a few hours be-
fore was the cellar of the burned es-
adjustment. AS the ruins were cool
ed slightly, from time to time, in a
spot on which streams were centered,
men went forward to dig as long as
human endurance would allow them
to work. Occasionally a body was
found and taken quickly away. This
work went on for hours and, perhaps,
will go on many hours longer before
the glowing mass gives up it's last
dead. 1t will take at least two days,
the authorities believe, before the
cellar can be cleared and the whole
truth known.
Resembles Triangle Fire.
The big, outstanding fact of the ca
tastrophe was its suddenness. In
this the disaster bears a strong re-
semblance to the Triangle Waist com
pany fire in New York, where 147
lives were lost when the inflammable
material upon which the employees
were working and the waste which
Uttered the floors blazed up with in
conceivable rapidity and set the i'm
prisoned workers jumping from the
windows to their death. The paral-
lei fails only in the lesser height and
different construction of the building
and in the number of the dead and
injured.
No Chance for Escape.
In the present tragedy the killing
burst of flame followed quickly the
alarm. There was small opportunity
for anyone to use the ordinary Of even
the emergency means of escape. Fire
drills had been carried on regularly
so frequently, in fact. that the EN-
ployes had found them monotonous
The building was equipped with fire
escapes and an automatic alarm sys
TEN. The alarm tinkled, Mrs. Reed
r. Freeman, wife of the proprietor
~telephoned to the central fire station
The usual apparatus for a first still
49, .NnIAI C0 Axstl 80
son at Warren and Chenango streets
four blocks away, saw a burst Of
flame and pulled the. box there. The
rest of the companies answered this
alarm.
Firemen Are Delayed.
That meant 10 minutes of delay fol
part of the firemen. But even those
who. arrived first were unable to dc
anything.
After this fierce blast, the fire
| seemed to burst from every part Of
the building at once. On the frees
D women children and men were
clustered. and inside others were
waiting TO get on the iron ladder. Blu
the flames were too quick for them
The slow starting of the fire drill
may have contributed TO the disaster
the delay in getting all the firemen t
the scene may have been responsible,
for part Of the loss of life. But per
sons who were early on the scene sa,
that those things did not MATERIAL.
affect the horrible result.
"