Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1895 — MANY GIRLS MANGLED. [ARTICLE]

MANY GIRLS MANGLED.

Pinned in a Montreal Fire-Trap by Iron-Barred Windows. W. C. McDonald’s extensive tobacco factory in Montreal, Que., was partially destroyed by tire Thursday evening. The loss will reach half a million dollars, on which there was no insurance. There was not a fire escape on the outside nor any appliances on the inside of the building for the fighting of the fire. Even the windows were guarded by heavy iron screens, presumably to prevent theft. The fire started at 5 o’clock in the drying room, aud for a while smoldered. Then suddenly the flames burst through and a most awful panic ensued. There tVere 900 employes in the building, and more than half this number were women and girls. The shrieks of the women as they beat against the iron screens, praying the crowd so do something to save them, were most heartrending. As the flames burst out three firemen were on the roof, and for fully twenty minutes their lives were despaired of, till finally ladders were found to bring them down. They were badly burned. The girls were nearly all on the fourth floor, and frantic with fear. With much trouble one of the ih>n lattices was knocked off, when one of the girls jumped and was almost shattered to pieces when she struck the j-oof of an adjoining warehouse. In a similar manner the others followed to the number of thirty. The ambulances were kept busy carrying the women .and girls to the hospitals, and some were driven in cabs to their homes. From inquiries at the hospitals concerning the condition of the girls injured by jumping from the windows of the burning building, it was learned that but little hope is entertained for the recovery of at least five. The first girl to make the ’ terrible leap from the fourth floor to the

warehouse roof was Marie Gagnon, who was picked op in an insensible condition, with her back broken.