The New York herald., 1876-12-07
A GhastIy Harvest OF Death.

The scenes presented during the day and
evening yesterday at the site Of the burned
Brooklyn Theatre and in the adjoining
street fill the imagination with horror. 1t
was not suspected in the morning. when the
search amid the ruins began, what stu
pendous and appalling revelation would
be made in the course of the day. 1t
was thought when the examination be-
gan that possibly few lives might
have been lost in the flames which
so suddenly devoured the edifice, and even
this conjecture seemed sufficiently awful
But what was the horror, the CONSERVATION,
the torture Of mingled suspense and fear
which took possession of the anxious multi
tude assembled around the scene of the
calamity as the desolating truth was dis
covered beneath the blackened debris, ex-
panding from hour to hour to moro stu
pendous proportions When it was found,
as the day wore on, that the victims
were not numbered by tens, nor by scores,
nor by fifties, but by hundreds, and this
constantly growing tale of horrors was cir
culated in successive extras from the news
paper Offices, an oppressive and ever thick
ening gloom settled upon the people of
these two great cities. This is q feeling
which all can understand; but who can
gauge the anguish of those who thronged
around the place and besieged the morgues
in quest of missing friends and uncertain of
their fate?
When the terrible reality, when the hideous
magnitude Of the disaster was brought to
light from beneath the smouldering ruins,
all minds went back and attempted to pic
ture to themselves the scenes of the pre-
ceding night shuddering sense of the
weakness Of human nature would willingly
draw q veil over it's average exhibitions when
suddenly overtaken by great peril. The
most mournful thing in such occurrences
is not the physical suffering, but the
tyrannical supremacy of the selfish in
stinct of life over oil the gentler feelings.
The fondness of lovers, the attachment
of husbands, fathers, brothers, the chivalry
which prompts the strong to rescue and
succor the weak, so often break down
beneath the overmastering love of life that
instances Of this kind are the saddest
feature of such great and sudden catas-
trophies, although they are relieved by
bright examples of noble self-devotion. To
die is not the great calamity; soldiers
and heroes and martyrs have stripped
death of oil its terrors when it is
met in a spirit like theirs. A death
of torture even by fire has SO often been
,ok Nv 1,,,rv ,a1 ~
the stake for their faith when one retracting
word would have saved them, that pity is
lost in admiration when we read the history
Of illustrious Christian martyrs. But we
cannot expect ordinary human nature to
rise to that sublime level. In circumstances
Of sudden peril some are paralyzed by fear
and utterly helpless many lose every
manly and generous feeling in frantic
struggle for life and it is only the self
possessed and noble few that face sudden
danger bravely and forget self in disinter-
ested care for the safety of others and
especially of the weaker sex. There were
such noble spirits in the Brooklyn Theatre
when the audience was seized with panic, as
there always are on similar occasions,
but they were too few to prevent
swooning women from being trampled
upon by persons of the other sex
in their mad struggles to escape from
the flames. The fearful loss of life is
less reg-ettable than such exhibitions of
human selfshness, which are the insepa-
rable attendant of these sudden panics.
1t is some consolation to believe that the
sufferings of those who are burned to death
within the walls of building are very brief
and that the end is painless. The combus-
ton generates large volumes of carbonic
acid gas, which, being heavier than the
atmospheric air, sinks to the lower
part of the building and envelops the
people on the floor before the flames
reach them. AS soon as they are sur
rounded with this deadly gas they become
insensible and are spared the excruciating
torture suffered by persons burned where
the mir can freely circulate. The relatives
and friends of the victims may spare them
selves the shuddering feeling that those
whom they have lost gave up their lives in
extreme physical or mental agony. Their
capaclty ior suffering WAS PtoDapiy eXtln-
guished before the flames reached them.
This is the most appalling calamity of
the kind that has ever occurred in
the United States. 1t is the most
appalling in recent times with the
single exception of the terrible holo-
caust at the burning of the church of the
Jesuits at Santiago, the capital of Chill, on
the evening of December 8, 1868, when
.'over two thousand souls passed through
that ordeal of fire to the judgment seat Of
God" The victims on that occasion were
mostly women and children. ''One hun
dred and fifty carloads of unrecognized
corpses were on the 9th and 10th car
ried to the cemetery. Beauty, wealth