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prior to the passage of this bill, a committee on accidents to women, of which I was, of course, the chairman and the chief mover. We had been concerned with cooperating with the American Association for Labor Legislation in the passage of the Workmen's Compensation Act. While we had not taken the lead in it, we had taken a supplementary part in promoting it.

We had been investigating on our own any report of major accidents or industrial illness in factories in and around New York, particularly if they affected woman. In the course of those investigations there had come to our attention two fires in factories. They were relatively small factories and the loss of life while startling had not been great, as it was later on in the Triangle Fire.

One of them was a factory over in New Jersey near Newark, (Elizabeth or one of those cities) in which the girls were engaged in putting a lacquer coating on small novelties, which were being made there. Little boxes, ornaments and such were lacquered over to give them a bright shine. That was what the girls were doing. In that case, one or two of the lacquer ovens exploded. By that explosion the pieces of inflammable material were thrown about. Lacquer is highly inflammable so the place was on fire very quickly. I don't remember the number of persons killed, but it was