TRAPPED IN FLAMES SIXTY FACTORY GIRLS PERISH

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 54, 1 September 1913, Page 3

TRAPPED IN FLAMES SIXTY FACTORY GIRLS PERISH

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 3rd August. When, two years ago, the factory of the Triangle Waist Company in New York City was burned down, and 147 work girls perished because of the want of any provision for their escape from a hideous death-trap laws and regulations were adopted by city and State authorities that it was believed would prevent the repetition, of any such catastrophe. But in Bpite of those laws — perhaps by evasion of them — the country has been horrified by another tragedy of the same kind, comparable in every way to the burning down of the Triangle factory except in the number of victims. On 22nd July, in Binghamton, New York State, the four-story factory of the Binghamton Clothing Company, a. mere j tinder box, caught fire during working hours, and between sixty and seventy girls were either hurned to death or died from injuries sustained in leaping from the top story, where most of them were at work sewing. Some forty others who sprang from the windows or ran through the flames escaped with their lives, some of them with injuries they will always bear. One of the laws passed after the Triangle fire requires regular fire drill by employees in factories. These drills have been held by the girls in the Binghamton workshop, but it is stated that they got tired of the monotony of it} and apparently only went through the form of drilling in a perfunctory manner. At any rate, the fire spread frith such appalling rapidity in the flimsy building, and had made such headway before It j was discovered by those on the upper story, that a fire drill would not have been of much avail then. -The flames were sweeping up through the "stairway before the workers realised their situation. "It was all in a flash," said one of the survivors ; " the flames swept upon us." There was, of course," a panic, and many of the terrified women fainted. The fire escapes were not large enough to hold those who rushed to the exits, and there was a rush for the windows, the trapped victims shrieking with pain as the names swept upon them from behind and seared their bodies. There wasi no chance for those caught on the upper stories except as a last resort to jump, and this many did. Others fell, shrivelled and crumpled with the heat. From the' fire^ escapes and the windows bodies fell thick and fast. A number of those who jumped even from the top story escaped with their lives, although most of them were badly maimed. The building itself was literally exterminated. At night there was nothing but a smouldering heap of ashes in the cellar, and from this, when sufficient water had been poured in to extinguish all 'fire, the incinerated bodies of many of the victims were taken. The fire enveloped the s building with such speed that the firemen were unable to be of aaxy assistance whatever. They could not, get near enough 'to use their life-nets or extension ladders. Indeed, they were forced to operate with thsir hoses from a distance of 200 ft, and the streams of water were merely turned into steam, without effect upon the fire. The fire is believed to have been started by the throwing of a cigarette end or match, jusc as was the Triangle factory fire. Here again, laws were only made to be broken. It is illegal to smoke in factories of this character. At Jackson, Mississippi, on the same date — 22nd July — there occurred another fire in which thirty-five lives were sacrificed. It was in an ill-constructed, ill-managed gaol, described as "an antiquated convict cage," and the victims were all negro prisoners. They were trapped by flames on the second floor, and the only stairway leading to tiis floor was rapidly eaten away. The prisoners tore at the heavy bars on thegaol window's, but to no avail. Each time members of a Rescue party attempted to reach the negroes and liberate them they were driven back by the flames. The unfortunate victims fell one by one back into the fire and perished. The building was constructed ten years ago of lumber taken from a discarded penitentiary. No fire-fighting apparatus was provided, and the first floor of the building was filled with inflammable material. The convicts all % worked in the cotton fields of the State, and were housed in the "cage" for the night. Among them were desperate criminals serving long sentences.