RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 163 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



I have invariably found that the workers in those buildings are much worse 

 in respect to their nervous and digestive condition than in the buildings that 

 are less than twelve stories. I ascribe this to their apprehension of danger 

 of fire and also to inadequate facilities and bad lunches. 



Elevator sickness 



A great many of our girls — and 75 per cent of the workers in the 

 dress and waist trade are girls — suffer from what they call elevator- 

 phobia. They cannot ride in the elevators. The sudden jar of the start and 

 the ascent or descent in elevators has a certain effect upon their nervous 

 system. As a result of that a great many girls prefer to walk down. Of 

 course, they can hardly walk up, but they can walk down. Some of them 

 have a feeling of nausea. I believe we had two or three cases of fainting. 

 I know of one factory — a 20-story building — where there were 200 workers 

 on the top floor, and at a certain time a number of the women workers were 

 pregnant. It was very bad for them to ride up and go down in the elevators. 

 This condition was fraught, with so much danger that fire drills in that shop 

 were discouraged for fear they might produce a sudden panic. Fire drills 

 may have a very bad effect upon women in the condition mentioned. The 

 fire drills, therefore, were discontinued during that time. Several times 

 when we have had fire drills in these high buildings we have been com- 

 pelled to station men on that floor to ask those women workers not to go 

 down. We practically control all the buildings in our trade and all the shops 

 in those buildings are wholly under our control. 



Fire drills 



We are at the present time conducting fire drills in 800 shops, prac- 

 tically the only fire drills that are conducted in the city, with the exception 

 of a very few conducted by the Croker Company. We have found when 

 people are called out on these fire drills that there is less trouble in build- 

 ings up to twelve stories in height then in buildings above twelve stories in 

 height. Even though the latter may have more exits, and even though they 

 are more completely fireproof, and even though they may have fireproof 

 towers, there is more apprehension and more nervousness and more evi- 

 dences of panic among the employees in such buildings than among those 

 in the lower buildings that I have mentioned. 



It frequently happens that during the drill someone drops or someone 

 faints. The result is that we very often have stoppages and obstructions, 

 which in the case of a real fire would be fraught with a great deal of danger. 

 W T e have several times been compelled to send away girls in ambulances. 

 I have always instructed our men to watch out for such cases. As soon as 

 the}' see that a girl drops and faints they remove her and take her upstairs 

 or downstairs, whichever may be best. 



Even in fireproof towers there is danger of smoke getting in and adding 

 to the panic. They are supposed to be smoke-proof, but they cannot be 

 smoke-proof for whenever a door is opened the smoke will come in. 



Data gathered by the experience of three years of our Fire Drill Divi- 

 sion, which at present operates in about 780 shops in the cloak and suit, and 

 dress and waist industries, throws some light on the problem of getting 

 operatives out of tall factory buildings in case of fire or panic. These drills, 

 however, show only the time which it requires operatives to leave the floor 

 where they work and not the building as a whole. Our records show that 

 an orderly exit off the floor is usually made in from about thirty seconds 



