A NEW YORK HORROR.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13336, 27 March 1911, Page 5

A NEW YORK HORROR.

FIRE AT A FACTORY. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY LIVES LOST. VICTIMS MOSTLY GIRLS. HEARTRENDING SCENES ] Press Association.—Telegraph.—Copyright.

NEW YORK, March 26. One hundred and fifty persons, mostly girls, met their deaths in a terrlffic conflagration at the Triangle Shirt-Waist Company's premises in Washington Place, New York.. The Are started on the eighth floor, and the girls, panic-stricken, jumped to the pavement, sixty being crushed by the fall. Fifty bodies were found on the ninth floor, where the flames overtook the occupants. The building was not provided with a single outside fire escape.

The crowd watched the girls leap, being unable to give any aid. ! The partners in the firm—Harris ami Blanck—escaped across the roofs, rescuing two daughters and a governess. I A number' of falling girls crashed through windows inset in the pavement ( into cellars beneath.-: A crowd of thousands watched a man ; and a woman emerge-from a ninth-storey .window. The man kissed the woman, and ; then flung her out at a life net, and leaped himself.' Both .were killed. Six girls climbed along electric wives, but the strands -parted', and all were killed. The Fire Brigade extinguished ' the flames within an hour. The walls arc intact.

Students at the law department of the New York University, which adjoined, rescued 40 across the roofs of neighbouring houses. The elevator men stuck to their posts and rescued scores. It is estimated that there wore 500 occupants of the building. THE VICTIMS. Received March 27, 2.5 p.m. NEW YORK, March 27. The majority of the 150 victims of the fire wci'e Italian and other foreign girls who had filled the strikers’ places.