The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1864-01-29
TERRIFIC TRAGEDY IN CHILL.
TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED
PERSONS ROASTED TO DEATH
In A CHURCH.
The CONFEDERATION and ITS
INCIDENTS.
THE FRIGHTFUL CATASTROPHE

T4E IL VA u AS Il ANO4 1AAI
THE RURNING OF THE CHURCH OF THE
JRsuIrs, WITH TWO THOUSAND WOMEN
AND CHILDREN.
One of the most horrible calamities that
has ever fallen upon any people occurred
in the city of Santiago, the capital of the
republic of Chile, on the night of the Sth OF
December last.
The Church of the Jesuits, in which was
being celebrated the Immaculate Concep-
ton of the Virgin, was destroyed by fire,
and with it were burned and sufocated
orer t,co thousand aconaen and children.
One can hardly realize the terrible catas-
trophe that has fallen upon the people OF
Chile Whole families have been swept
away in an instant, as it were, and there
is hardly home in Santiago that has not
been thrown into the depths of woe. The
battlefield has its horrors, but they are the
incidents of war. In this case it has been
women and children who have been de-
stroyed, and none were able to render them
any aid. Husbands, brothers and fathers
have had to stand by and witness wives,
sisters and children perish in the flames
and not be able to render them any assist
ance. l give you the full account from
the Mercurio del Vdpir of the 18th ult.,
which has all the details; also, some re-
marks from that paper concerning the
catastrophe, all of which are of deep in
terest:
One of those awful visitations which
from time to time afflict nations with eter-
nal mourning took place on Tuesday, Dec
8, at the festival of the ImmaculatiOn Con-
ception, in what was the Church of the
Jesuits In the capital. A magnificent tenn
lives sacrificed, the whole city weeping its
lost ones-such is the picture Santiago
offers US since the fatal night, the anniver-
sary of another mortal catastrope-the
battle of Longsmills. On the commence
ration of the Immaculate Conception, the
last of the festivities of the month of May,
the most popular and frequented of all our
solemnities, thousand of fair devotees
thrOnged to the last performance, which
was to eclipse all that had preceded. At
six in the evening the spacious steps and
part Of the open place before the church
swarmed with ladies in wells, frantically
struggling to enter temple where not one
more could be made room for.
A few minutes before seven, and when
the religious performance was about to
commence, they were still lighting the last
lights in the chancel, when the portable
gas in the half moon of canvass and wood
that formed the pedestal of colossal i'm
age of the Virgin Mary began to burn one
of the extremities of that apparatus. Some
one rushed on the rising flame and sue
ceeded in smothering it, but by fatal re-
bound the gas, compressed by the effort,
burst out with redoubled vigor at the other
extremity of the false half-moon. Imme-
diately fierce flame rushed up. The per-
sons who thronged the chancel flew to-
wards the sacristy crying "water, water"
whilst the women, who filled the nave,
arose in tumultuOus confusion screaming
for help.
The fire spread with wonderful rapidity
to the reredos of wood and hangings, and
thence, attracted by the current of air
that always circulates between the upper
boarding and the roof, rolled through the
church. In few moments all over head
was mass of flames, In the meantime
the men had succeeded in escaping; for
in this church the sexes were separated by
an iron grating, and the women had fled
as far as the middle of the church, in a
state of the most terrible confusion. But
the headlong hurry, the fainting the OBJ
struction of the bell-shaped dresses, and
the frantic eagerness to gain the street,
formed an impenetrable barrier before the
two doors, which, by culpable impru-
dence, gave access to the free air only
towards the open space in front and the
small court of the west side of the church.
That obstacle was the barrier of death.
And now what seemed most horrible
was that, seeing the salvation of lives
within reach of our arms, it was impOssi-
BILE to save even one of the victims piled
one upon another on the very threshold.
Hardly had the noble men who devoted
themselves to save lives at the peril OF
their own, seized by the arms or the clothes
a PROSTATE form than the other women,
mad with terror, from the nearness of the
fire, clutched the victim about to be saved,
and, in some cases, dragged those who
came to help them into that fiery vortex
1t was almost impossible to extract
even one from that heap of despairing
wretctes and undo that CHASTITY knot.
But the fire accomplished that which BAT
fled man, and the passage into the DOOM
ed church was not cleared until that i'm
penetrable phalanx Of precious, beautiful
life was handful of cinders.
At midnight the smoking ruins of the
fatal temple, so soon a silent charnel house,
was visited, and by the light of a lantern
every slip showed to the appalled, gaze,
fearful groups Of carbonized corpes, that
preserved still the supplicating or despair
ing attitude of their trightiul martyrdom.
In another account from the same
paper, is found more of the sickening
details and fuller particulars | give it
entire:
A dreadful visitation has fallen upon
US. Truly this is day OF trouble and re-
buke for blasphemy. The voice of lamen-
tation is heard all over the land the Bit
ter weeping of fathers, husbands, brothers
and lovers, for those who were the ioy and
brightness of their lie, that refuses to be
comforted because they are not. Humid
l. s, ,;riS cnlxy yao<or1o,x