On Monday at the resumed inquest on the ten victims—
nine of them young girls—of the recent fire in the City, impor- tant evidence was given by several witnesses who bad escaped from the building. Alice Thompson, a young girl who threw herself from the fourth floor into a tarpaulin which had been taken from a passing van, stated that she had been eighteen months in the service of the Company, but knew nothing of the trapdoor in the roof through which two of the men escaped. Several of the men employed on the premises also gave evidence, the foreman, whose duty it was to look after the girls on the fourth floor, admitting that he had never told the girls about the trapdoor, while another, who stated that he was as terrified as the girls, stated that the ladder to the trapdoor had been placed beneath a bench in the room and was perfectly useless, and that the girls had not been informed what they should do in case of an outbreak of fire. Evidence was also given by Lord Ernest Hamilton. In his opinion, the lives of the girla might have been saved if a long ladder had arrived in the place of the shcirt one. The inquest was adjourned till July 7th, by which time it was hoped that the four girls still in hospital would be able to give evidence.
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