The Penn's Grove record., 1913-07-25
GIRLS PERISH
IN FIRE TRAP
Scores Die in 0iI-Soaked Fac
tory at B%inghamton, N. Y.
DOZEN TAKE DEATH LEAP
Spectators Are HeIpIess-Driven Back
by Fierce Heat from Those Trap-
ped in Circle of FIames-Error
Delays Firemen.

Delays Firemen.
B~lnghamton, N. Y.-Tardy response
to a fire warning contributed to the
loss of fifty lives and injuries to half a
hundred persons in the Binghamton
Clothing Company's four-story brick
factory building at Z Wall street.
Most Of the victims were girls. A
blaze that did its work in twenty min
utes destroyed the building, damaged
several nearby structures, and buried
bodies In the ruins so swiftly that the
foregoing figures were the closest es-
innate the police and firemen could
make.
Lack of adequate facilities for es-
cape were charged by friends Of the
dead or dying, but Reed B. Freeman,
President of the company, and Harry
Evans, another member of the con-
Germ, said the length of the death roll
was due to the slowness of the Young
women in falling into line to quit the
factory. The employers said recent
familiarity with fire drills had led the
" DCNOliC o1llIOSI lHullSI6uL
to alarms from the system installed
two months before in obedience to the
State authorities.
Twenty-siX bodies had been recover
ed from the ruins at midnight. Other
victims had died on the way to the
hospital, or in that institution. Still
others were close to death, and it was
said the estimate of fifty fatalities
might turn out to be too low.
The fire, which it is believed was
started by the careless throwing of a
cigarette butt or match, in its sudden
ness bears resemblance to the Tri-
angle Waist Company holocaust in
New York city, where 147 lives were
lost.
1t was 2:30 in the afternoon when
William Bennett, a cutter employed
on the second floor of the factory, de-
tected the odor of smoke and, open
ing the door, saw a streak of gray
mounting the staircase. Promptly he
turned In the fire alarm, and the
gongs rang throughout the building.
The building was equipped with an
automatic alarm system, which also
tinkled at 2.30 o'clock. Mrs. Reed B.
Freeman, wife of the proprietor, tried
to telephone to the central fire sta
ton, but the flames drove her from
the instrument.
Some excited person at Warren and
Chenango streets, four blocks away,
saw a burst OF flame II pulled the
o there. That meant ten minutes of
delay for part of the fremen. But
ever those who arrived first were un-
able to do anything. The first puff of
fame vas hardly ~discerned before the
fire leaped along the staircases, up
the walls, up the elevator shaft, along
the floors and ceilings. There was a
roar, front and rear, and the flame
belched forth clear across Wall street,
on which the building fronted, wither-
ing the shade trees on the river bank
and scorching the building across an
alley at the rear.
On the first floor was a clerical
force of six; in the cutting room, on
the second floor, were five employees;
in the finishing room, on the third
floor, twenty, and some eighty to one
hundred machine operators on the
fourth floor.
When the alarm was sounded the
girls on the top floor turned leisurely
from the machines, remarking: That
is another fire drill"
Many of the girls were reluctant to
go, because they were piece workers,
and the time required for a fire drill
meant money out of their pockets.
They waited to fasten their clothing,
which had been loosened on account
of the heat, then started downstairs.
On the third floor landing stood a
man, supposed to be the foreman,
Sidney Dimmock, who is missing. He
clapped his hands and cried: Hurry,
girls! Hurry"
The girls at this warning, ran to the
third floor landing and then saw that
the stairway leading to the first floor
was in fame. Here developed the
first sign of panic. The employees
halted, then wheeled, and with one
accord rushed back upstairs to the
top floor, the flames following close
at their heels.
The crowd rushed forward to drag
the mangled forms away. The intense
heat drove them back. Then a burst
of fame from several windows en-
shrouded the crowded fire escapes.
There was one last wall of agony.
Human forms were seen to shrivel
and drop to the ground. The roof
caved in, the walls tottered and with
a great crash bore down living and
dead in a steaming, smoking pile.
All fed toward the rear stairway,
only to find this in flames. Then be-
gan a wild scramble for the fire es-
capes, of which there were two, n at
the east end, the other on the south
side of the factory.
Scores died before they could reach
stairway or windows.
The girls crowded through the win
dows to the fire escapes, clinging
there and shrieking for help. Inside
the room girls were fighting for places
at the windows. Some ran to the
front and, ~strangling from the heat
and smoke, plunged to the tagging,
fifty feet below.
%0hAIN-c BIIahER 70 nEA-n