The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1913-07-30
FIFTY MEET Death
fire TRAPS MANY VICTIMS In
CLOTHING FACTORY
some LEAP To GROUND

Four-Story Factory Building, With
125 Inmates, Mostly Women, Gut
ted by Terrific Blaze-Building
Protected by Fire Escapes and Au-
tomato Alarm.
Fifty persons were killed, accord
ing to late estimates, and many in
jured, dozen or more fatally, in
fire which swept the four-story fac
tory building of the Binghamton
Clothing Company at Binghamton.
n Y, Tuesday afternoon. The VIC
tins were chiefly women and girls.
Early Tuesday night twenty-five
bodies had been recovered. In the
city hospital and in private institu-
tions are thirty injured. Some two
score persons are known to have es-
capped, as if by miracle, from the
building which burst into fame like
a tinderbox and became a roaring
furnace almost in no time after the
| first alarm was sounded.
About 125 persons were in the
factory when the fire broke out.
Those unaccounted for, or most of
them, are believed to be still in the
| red hot ruins of the structure.
About the scene of the catastro-
phe, thousands watched the rescuers
work in the glare of three big search
lights, many in the great throng be-
ing restrained only by the closely
drawn police lines from rushing into
the ruins to seek the bodies of rela-
tives or friends.
Many streams of water are being
poured into the fiery pit, which few
hours ago was the cellar of the burn
ed establishment. AS the ruins were
cooled slightly, from time to time in
spot upon which the streams were
centred, men went forward to dig as
long as human endurance would al
low them to work. Occasionally a
body was found and quickly taken
away.
The work will go on for several
days before the glowing mass gives
up it's last dead. It will take at least
two days, the authorities believe, be-
fore the callar can be cleared and the
whole truth known.
The fire is believed to have been
started by the careless throwing of
cigarette butt or match. In the trag-
edy Tuesday afternoon the, burst of
flame followed quickly after the
alarm. There was little opportunity
to use ordinary or even emergency
means of escape. Fire drills had
been carried on regularly, so fire.
quently, in fact that the employees
had found them monotonous.
The building was equipped with
fire escape and an automatic alarm
system. The alarm 'tinkled at 2:30
o'clock. Mrs. Reed B. Freeman, wife
of the proprietor, telephoned on the
central fire station. The usual ap-
paratus for a first still alarm re-
| sponded. Some excited person at
Warren and Chenango streets, four
blocks away, saw a burst Of flames
and pulled the box there. The rest
Of the companies answered this
alarm.
That meant ten minutes delay for
part of the firemen. But even those
who arrived first we're unable to do
anything. The first puff of flames
was hardly discerned before the fire
leaped along the stair cases and
walls, up the elevator shaft, along
floors and ceilings. There was a
roar. front and rear, and the flames
belched forth clear across Wall
street, on which the building fronted,
whitening the shade trees on the riv-
er bank, and scorching a building
across an alley at the rear.
After this fierce blast the fire
seemed to burst from every part of
the building at once. Upon the fire
escapes girls, women and men were
clustered, and inside. others were
waiting to get onto the iron ladders.
But the flames were too quick for
them.
When the firemen arrived in re-
sponse to the telephone alarm they
were unable to get within 200 feet Of
the burning building and the ends Of
the streams from their hose were
turned into steam without effect up
on the fire.
Life nets and extension ladders
were equally useless. There was no
chance for those caught on the up
per floors, except the last resort to
| jumping, and this many took. while
others fell shrivelled. and crimpled
with the heat.
Scarcely one of the survivors was
able to give connected account Of
what took place on the upper floors
Of the factory when the employees
| IUSTS-uOSlly hOulOn anu ok1AS
realized that the fire call was no false
alarm and that death was sweeping
upon them.
The coolest recalled that women
tainted by dozens and the the scene
was one of indescribable confusion.
Some of the men employees appar-
emily kept their heads and did their
best to rescue the imperilled women.
The fre-escapes were not large
enough to hold all who rushed to the
exits and there was a dash for win
dows, the trapped victims shrieking
from pain as the flames swept upon
them from behind and scared their
bodies.
Then from windows and frees