MOTOR HOSE WAGON IS EXPECTED SOON

Hose Apparatus For the Fire Department May
Be Here Monday or Tuesday

No doubt now remains in the minds of the firemen that they are to have the motor hose wagon.  Word was whispered around this morning that it was sure to arrive either Monday or Tuesday and in any case not later than the middle of the week.

Councilman Hackett and Dinelli were also busy trying to rent a room near the engine house in which to keep it while it was being tried out.  It is thought best not to move the old wagon and team out yet as the new hose wagon might not prove satisfactory and then they would be out all the extra expense for fixing for it.

The wagon will be kept in the Scobee building on Fairfax street for thirty days or until the Councilmen are satisfied that it will give satisfaction and then it will be taken to the engine house.  No arrangements as yet have been made for the old hose wagon and team, after the new one is installed, but in all probability it will be sent to the north end and another engine house established.

The Winchester News
Winchester, Kentucky
March 29, 1909

EIFFEL TOWER USED AS A WEATHERCOCK

This May Prove of Great Value to Aeronauts of the Future

A new use has been discovered for the Eiffel tower, which is quite important, although by no means of an exalted nature.  It is no less than that the falg on top of the tower serves as an admirable weather cock when read in conjunction with the structure itself, which has projections coinciding with the cardinal points of the compass, that facing north being painted red.  Occupants of balloons and airships can therefore, with the aid of field glasses, readily inform themselves of the nature of the wind at an altitude of 30 meters above the ground in that vicinity, and make their arrangements with more certainty in regard to any comtemplated aerial voyage.  –London Globe

The San Francisco Call
San Francisco, California
March 29, 1909

WHITE STAR LINE PLANS TWO MAMMOTH LINERS

Vessels Will Be Largest Steamers Afloat When Finished

Consul Samuel S. Knabenshue reports that a Belfast firm of ship builders is constructing two new slips which will enable vessels 1,000 feet in length to be built to which he adds:

There are two gantries, 225 feet high, running the entire length of these slips. Each gantry is supported on 33 columns, each over 180 feet in height, and will be supplied with pneumatic riveters and lifting cranes. The new slips will be completed in November next. As soon as these slips are completed the keels of two new vessels for the White Star line will be laid, each 860 feet in length. These steamships will be completed in 1910 and will be larger than any vessel now afloat.

New White Star Liners—Length, 860 feet; breadth, 92 feet; tonnage, 45,000 to 50,000; speed, 19 to 20 knots; engines, turbine and piston combined.

The San Francisco Call
San Francisco, California
March 29, 1909

FOUR PERSONS DIE IN SWEATSHOP FIRE. (09-08-1908)

Scores Narrowly Escape from Incendiary Blaze Down Ladders and Over Roofs.

FIREMEN RESCUE MANY

Two Members of Truck 18 Injured When a Floor Crumbles Under Their Feet.

Two women, sweatshop workers, clung to the railing of a fire escape on the fifth floor of the big seven-story brick building at 542 to 548 Water Street last night and screamed for help, while flames crept up from the lower floors.  The flames reached them and they were driven back inside.  As the building burned two dozen men were rescued by the police and firemen, but no women were among the rescued.

Four charred bodies were found just before midnight.  One of them was that of a woman.  Another was that of a man apparently about 40 years old.  The other two were so badly charred that the firemen could not tell whether they were men or women.

It is supoosed that all who lost their lives in the blaze were sweatshop workers, for the upper floors of the building were occupied by dozens of them.  In many of the shops men and women were at work when the fire started.

The firemen are still searching the ruins this morning in the belief that other bodies will be found.  Until the search is ended the number of dead cannot be definitely settled.

The fire was undoubtedly of incendiary origin, according to Fire Chief Croker.  Three alarms were sounded, and practically the entire fighting force of the lower east side turned out to save the warehouse section, of which the big seven-story building was the centre.  There was a hospital, too, less than a block away, and the firemen feared the flames might reach there, but the valiant work kept the blaze within the one building.  The damage is estimated by Chief Croker at $75,000 or more.

MANY GOT DOWN FIRE ESCAPES.

The building, one of the largest in that part of the city, was occupied mainly by seat shops.  From one of these a hundred or more scrambled down the fire escapes in the rear, on Cherry Street, for the building ran from Water to Cherry, and a few reached the roof and ran along to neighboring buildings, from which they reached the street in safety.

The four bodies which were found in the ruins were on the sixth floor, near the Water Street side.  The victims were probably driven from the front windows by the flames and were overcome before they could run the length of the building and get out by way of the fire escapes on the Cherry Street side.

Escape on the Water Street side of that part of the building was impossible, for flames were licking up the front from the third floor to the roof.  There were no stairways leading to the roof, the firemen say, and no elevator was in working order.

The searching party of firemen, headed by Deputy Chief Guerin, was organized as soon as the blaze as out, about 9:30 o’clock.  For an hour the firemen were kept busy washing away the debris so that they could see what lay beneath.  It was nearly midnight before the first body was found.  It was near one of the windows on the sixth floor.

The body of the woman was about thirty feet from the front of the building, and it is supposed that she was one of the two who were seen by the watchman hanging to the fire escape of the fifth floor soon after the blaze started.  How she got to the sixth floor will never be known.

While the search for the bodies was going on on the sixth floor Deputy Chief Guerin and his men had a narrow escape from death.  Without warning part of the floor gave way and several of the firemen were plunged headlong to the fifth floor.  Firemen Thomas Walsh and John Miller, both of Truck 18, were hurt.  Walsh sustained a broken wrist and Miller was badly bruised.  They were hustled down to the street by their comrades and the wounds were dressed by Dr. Wygley of Gouverneur Hospital.

BODY FELL WITH FLOOR.

When the floor fell one of the charred bodies which had not been seen by the firemen plunged down to the fifth floor and landed a few feet away from the firemen who were injured.  This body proved to be that of a man apparently about 40 years old.

Policeman Edward F. Howe of the Madison Street Station saw the blaze first.  It shone through the front windows on the Water Street side of the building on the third floor.  He sent in an alarm and started the work of rescue without waiting for the arrival of the firemen.  Two men were on the fifth floor fire escape on the east end of the building when Howe and several volunteers began scaling the fire escapes on the west end.  Howe yelled to the men to cross over to the west side.  This they did, and descended to the third floor platform and were rescued by the policeman.

“There are others inside,” whispered Abraham Rosmann, one of the sweatshop workers, as he was being carried down the ladder.  The other man who was rescued was Nathan Liebowitz.  Howe and his volunteers returned to the upper floors and assisted a number of other sweatshop workers to safety.

In the rear on the Cherry Street side other rescuers were at work, and a number of men escaped that way.  The fire by this time had spread to the fourth and fifth floors on the east side of the building.  It was then that the women were seen on the fire escape of the fifth floor.

Cornelius Sullivan, a watchman, employed at Silas W. Griggs’s warehouse, just across Water Street, saw the women and heard their cries for help.

“Then the flames, which were spreading out like a fan over the front of the building, reached them, ” said Sullivan afterward.  “I saw them stagger back through the window and disappear.”

The flames finally covered the entire east side of the building from the third floor to the roof.  Shortly after the engines arrived the fire burst through the roof.

When Chief Croker arrived he led the way to the third floor of 544, which is just west of the center of the building.  In a vacant loft on the third floor of 544 he found a small blaze.  There is no opening in the wall which separates 544 from 546 and 548.  He ordered his men to chop away the floor boards.  He found no blaze beneath them.

“This fact seems proof enough that the fire was of incendiary origin,” said Chief Croker later.  He said that similar fires had apparently been started in 546 and 548, the east wing of the building.  It was this wing which was burned from the third floor up.

There were a number of vacant rooms in this part of the building, although the entire fourth, fifth, and sixth floors were occupied by sweatshop workers.  Some of the workers lived in the building, sleeping in little rooms adjoining the main workrooms.  After the second alarm had been turned in Deputy Fire Chief Guerin of the First Division arrived.  He led a rescue party into the building from the Cherry Street side.  The flames had not reached that side of the building on the third and fourth floors.  On some of the upper floors the Deputy Chief and his men found the sweatshop workers sitting at thier machines.

“They were simply paralyzed with fright,” said the Deputy Chief afterward.  “They had heard the shouts of fire in the front of the building and were too demoralized to get up and run.  We just kicked them out of the rooms and headed them for the fire escapes.  And down these they scudded.  I believe that if we hadn’t kicked them out they would have perished where they were.”

The third alarm followed quickly after the second.  Chief Croker realized that much valuable adjacent property was in danger.  In the Beth Isreal Hospital, at Jefferson and Cherry Streets, were several hundred patients.  There was some uneasiness among them, and Superintendent Frank gave orders for their quick removal should the blaze get beyond the control of the firemen.  A number of the patients put on their clothing to be ready for a quick exit.

Three blocks away was the Gouverneur Hospital, quite out of danger, but the patients there, too, hearing the sound of the fire bells and the shouting in the streets, experienced some uneasiness.

Several ambulances arrived on the scene, directly after the fire started.  The firemen worked from the fire escapes on both sides of the burning building, also from the roofs of the neighboring warehouses.  When the searchlight and water tower arrived Chief Croker directed that the attack be made from the Water Street side.

In the basement of the burning building were twenty or more horses, owned by a livery stable firm.  The horses were got out without mishap by employees of the stable and policemen and firemen.  One of the horses caused some excitement by balking on the steep stairway leading from the basement to the street, but it was finally blindfolded and led to safety.

All along the front of the burning building on the west wing fire ladders were run up high as the fifth floor just after the firemen arrived, and these ladders aided greatly in the work of rescue.

Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

DELAGRANGE BEATS HIS AIRSHIP RECORD.

Stays Up 31 Minutes, but 3 Minutes Are Deducted for Touching Ground on First Round.

WRIGHT IS NOT DISTURBED

Says Frenchman Has Yet to Show That He Can Fly in Wind and at Higher Altitudes.

PARIS, Sept. 7. — Leon Delagrange, President of the Aviation Club of France, to-day beat his world’s aeroplane record made yesterday.  he circled the field at Issy eighteen times at an average height of thirteen feet and remained in the air thirty-one minutes.

As, however, Delagrange’s aeroplane touched the ground while making its first round of the field, three minutes were deducted, making the official time twenty-eight minutes.

M. Delagrange carried thirty liters of essence in the machine’s tank, but was forced to discontinue his flight before all of it was exhausted, owing to interference of the lubricating oil with the sparking apparatus of the motor.  M. Delagrange is confident that he will be able to remain in the air an hour before the end of the week.  The experts watching the aeroplane duel between Delagrange and Wilbur Wright, the Dayton, Ohio, aeroplanist, exhibit the liveliest interest in the manoeuvres of the two machines.

Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

COUGHLIN’S WILD TALK IN JAIL. (09-08-1908)

Tells of Long Wanderings in Search of the President.

MINEOLA, L. I., Sept. 7. — John Coughlin, who was arrested by the President’s Secret Service guard at Oyster Bay and who was committed to the Nassau County prison here on a charge of carrying concealed weapons, was brought down and lodged in the jail about 5 o’clock this afternoon.  Coughlin declares he comes from Walpole, Mass., and strenuously denies that he intended any harm to President Roosevelt.

The jail officials could not determine from his wild talk whether he was in the vicinity of the President’s home of Saturday when the shot is reported to have been fired at the President.

“I wanted to see the President in order to get justice in a case where the law has been grossly violated,” is what the prison keepers say the man says.  “I want to lay the case before him, for it is one demanding his attention.  On July 23 a great crime was committed at Forest Hills, in the State of Massachusetts.  On that day Mother Eve was taken out and lynched by a bold gang of yeggmen.  This woman was one of eminent respectability, for she was the mother of the great State of New York.  Justice should be done, and I hope to see the law vindicated.  It was for this reason that I went to Oyster Bay.  I intended harm to no one.  I have a lot of evidence in this case, and I want to present it to the Prsident.”

At the county jail here this evening Coughlin, who is a handsome man, with clear-cut features and a Van Dyck beard, attributes his arrest, apparently to one Jack Brennan, for he says he always knew Brennan was not straight.

Coughlin says he is 35 years old, and is a detective for the “Unelected Congress of Massachusetts.”  He says he is not paid because the unelected congress has no money, while the elected congress has lots of money with which to pay detectives.

He says he has been gathering the evidence of the lynching of “Mother Eve” ever since July 23, and two weeks ago reached Washington only to find the President was not thee.  He hung around Washington a few days, and then started to walk to find the President.  He walked till he came to York, Penn.  Finding he had still far to go he boarded a train which took him to Elmira, N. Y.  There he heard the President was at Saratoga, so he went there.  At the Saratoga Springs he found he had been misled, so he took a train and reached New York, and finally reached Oyster Bay this morning.

He easily found out where the President lived.  He says he walked in the general direction of the house he could see through the trees, and came upon a man sitting on a wall and went over to him.  He asked if that was the President’s house over there, and was told it was.  He said he started on his way, but the man made him open his bag, and not only that but searched it, and then told him he guessed it would be all right, but to wait a few minutes.  Pretty soon another man in an automobile came up, and he was brought here.

Efforts will be made to identify “Coughlin” by communicating with the Boston police.
Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

CONVERSE FEASTS GOLFERS.

Many Distinguished Persons Entertained at Fairfield County Golf Club.

GREENWICH, Conn., Sept. 7. — “Converse Night” was celebrated at the Fairfield County Golf Club, in Greenwich, to-night in a gorgeous manner after a day of play over the new course of 18 holes, which was formally opened at 9:30 in the morning by E. C. Converse, President of the club, making a great drive from the first tee.  Eight silver cups were presented in the play, one being a visitors’ cup, all visitors being allowed to play.  Two hundred golfers and guests sat down at 8 in the evening under a mammoth tent to partake of a dinner, including some special dishes prepared under Mr. Converse’s direction, secured by him when abroad.  Flowers, greens, and fancy lights added to the beauty of the occasion.  Seven vaudeville “turns” were presented.

Julian W. Curtiss was toastmaster, and seated at the first table with him were Mr. Converse, William Travers Jerome, the Rev. Percy S. Grant, J. H. Flagler, W. H. Truesdale, Congressan William Ward, Charles A. Moore, and Col. Morris G. Osborne of New Haven.  Other notables present were ex-Mayor F. W. Wurster of Brooklyn, Judge M. J. O’Brien, A. Wagstaff, persy and William G. Rockefeller, Col. R. C. McKinney, and Col. Robert B. Baker.  During the evening the club presented to Mr. Converse a heavy silver seaman cup suitably inscribed in recognition of his administration.
Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

COHAN’S NEW PLAY STAGED.

“The American Idea” Is a Satire on International Marriage.

BUFFALO, Sept. 7. — George M. Cohan’s new musical comedy, “The American Idea,” was produced at the Star Theatre to-night.  The young author-composer and his family were cheered repeatedly, and Mr. Cohan was forced to make two speeches, and had to beg off from a third after the last act.

“The American Idea” is a satire on international marriage, with its scenes laid in Paris.  The title-hunting American is held up to laughter.  George Beban as a bogus Count, Hugh Mack as a mysterious stranger, Al Reeves, Trixie Friganza, Gilbert Gregory, Stella Hammerstein, Carrie Bowman, Walter Leroy, Richard Taber, Lois Merrill, Rosie Green, and Gertie Vanderbilt were conspicuous in the cast.
Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

“CARMEN” AT THE AMERICAN

Italian Company Gives a Praiseworthy Performance of the Opera.

Considering the price of admission charged, the performance last night of “Carmen” by the Ivan Abramson Italian company at the American Theatre was praiseworthy.  Every seat was occupied, while enthusiasts stood six deep in the rear of the house.

Mme. Duce-Merola, a Polish soprano, sang Carmen, and her work improved as the evening wore on.  Signor Torre was Don Jose, and made a pronounced hit, G. Zara was a stalwart Escamillo, and Mme. Bertosi sang the plaintive role of Michaela.  The Smuggler’s quartet was done by Mmes. Solon and Bossi and Signori Novelli, Frascona, and Oteri.

The orchestra, under the baton of G. Merola, was satisfactory, and many of the passages were played with discretion and artistic effect.
Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908

BALLOON TRIP ON A DARE.

Young Man at Young Woman’s Word Makes Ascent and Lands Safely.

SAN JOSE, Cal., Sept. 7. — Accepting a dare from a young woman, Fred Biaggi, the 18-year-old son of a prune rancher, yesterday made an unheralded aeronautic ascent that thrilled hundreds of spectators.  Running forward just as W. I. Warring, the professional parachute artist, cut loose from the ground, Biaggi sprang into the cordage at the mouth of the bag and was carried upward to a height estimated at 6,000 feet.

Warring, with his parachute, cut loose at an elevation of 2,500 feet, and with Biaggi as its solitary passenger the balloon drifted over the hills of the coast range until it was almost lost to view.  His weight prevented the sudden escape of the gas, and after two hours of suspense among his friends, he returned to town, having landed without injury.
Originally published in The New York Times on Tuesday, September 8, 1908