NEW YORK FIRE TRAGEDY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 143674, 19 December 1911, Page 7

NEW YORK FIRE TRAGEDY.

FACTORY OWNERS OX TRIAL. NEW YORK, Dec. H. An extraordinary scene was witnessed to-day outside the Supreme Courthouse, where Isaac Harris and Alax Blanch, of the Triangle ShirtWaist Co., are now being tried on the charge of manslaughter arising out of the fire by which their factory in Washington-placo, New York, was destroyed, and 150 of the employees lost their lives. Gathered outside the courthouse were a number of girls and women, all survivors of the dreadful disaster by which so many of their fellow-workers went to their doom. Ever since the catastrophe occurred a very bitter feeling has been manifested towards Harris and Blanch, and as they were approaching the court this morning they were violently set upon by the girls. The two men were punched, scratched, and otherwise knocked about unmercifully, and the court officials and police had a rough job getting them out of the hands of the enraged women. “That’s something for them,” said one woman, as both men were dragged away from their assailants, their clothes all torn and their bodies bruised, battered, and bleeding.

The fire at the Triangle ShirtWaist Co’s, factory, which resulted in such a holocaust, occurred in the latter part of last Alarch. It was one of the most dreadful tragedies of the kind in a country in which such calamities have been fairly numerous. According to the survivors, the doors loading to the fireescapes were all locked, and the 150 employees, mostly girls, wlio lost their lives, were either burned or crushed to death. The circumstances generally were such as to provoke some very strong comments from the newspapers. “This frightful catastrophe,” declared the New York American, “was not an accident. It was simply a crime.”