Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1876-12-07

roughs, is now reported missing Thus far
but three corpses have been identifed-those
of Hugh J. Dover and Nicholas Kelley, NJ Xii
larry street, and John Woods, / Fleet place
At two O'Clock one hundred and fifteen
bodies had been recovered, and there are
probably as many more within the ruins.
Some persons assert that no one in the upper
gallery of the theater escaped. The last man
that left the stairs before they fell, SAYS that
behind HIM was the helpless half-sutfocated
crowd.
On Washington street q line of horses and
wagons are waiting TO remove the bodies.
Great crowds of persons are gathered in the
neighborhooa of the morgue to identify miss
ing relatives and friends, and their lamenta-
tons are truly pitful 1t requires force of
the police to keep them from crowding over
each other. The actors themselves had great
difficulty in effecting their escape. Going
back of the stage, their advance was cut off
by the flames that played around the usual
place OF egress and struggled from beyond
to burst open the door. Miss Claxton, an
other lady, Mr.. Mathews and another gentle
man succeeded in entering the dark under
ground passage-way to the box office, and
saved themselves with difficulty. Stuart
Campbell, short reporter on the Com
also police officer Patrick Keon
2:40pm.-Up to this hour ono hundred
and thirty bodies have been removed, and
others are still in the ruins.
p.m.-One hundred and seventy-fve
bodies have been taken from the ruins of the
theater. The ruins are still burning, making
the work of removing the bodies very diff
cult. Flags are at half-mast throughout the
city, and the theaters are draped in mourn
ing.
Horror upon horror accumulated as the day
advanced. Corpse after corpse, charred and
blackened, was passed out and still the pile
of bodies in the cellar did not seem to dImin-
ish. AS the number mounted up to one hun
dred and one and one hundred and sixty, the
belief that the number would reach over two
hundred grew into certainty, and finally at
half-past four o clock the two hundredth body
was removed. Some were found with their
limbs and hands burned off, and nothing left
but ghastly, blackened trunk At five
o'clock the number had reached two hundred
and twenty bodies taken out in half an hour.
A look into the pit at this time showed a con-
siderable pile of corpses lying crosswise like
sticks of wood, and there were apparently
fifty or sixty corpses remaining. This was in
the cellar under the inner, vestibule, from
where all the bodies taken out to-day were
removed. They lay in pile, apparently
where they had been pitched into the cellar
when the floor and stairway gave way.
When the panic occurred on the main floor
of the theater, Thomas Rockford, chief usher
of the establishment, was in the lobby. The
performance was almost over, and he was
about making arrangements for the depart
ure Of the audience At the cries of fire he
rushed into the auditorium and endeavOred
to quiet the people who were about him, but
seeing they were too thoroughly alarmed he
ian to the doors leading into Floods alley,
which connects Johnson street and
Myrtle avenue, and opened them
so that the people might escape
in that way. This diverted many from seek
ing to escape through the main entrance. All
who were on the right-hand side of the par
quettc and balcony escaped through these
doors. The opening of the doors created a
draught, which so increased the
flames that the players were compelled to
abandon the stage and escape as best they
might. They had remained there to
the last, but, on seeing that it was
a question of life and death, they
The flames shot out on all sides
of the stage .enveloping the proscenium, and
the smoke began pouring In volumes into the
parquette Messrs. Studley and Murdoch
were the last to leave. Probably not more
than five minutes elapsed between the begin
ming of the panic and the complete envelop-
ment of the stage and parquette in flames
By this time nearly all those in the lower
part of the house had escaped, and
The crowd from above came pouring
down into the lobbies, which were soon
densely crowded and the stairways choked
up, and there seemed to be no way in which
they could be relieved. Many succeeded III
by the regular means of egress into
street, but that staircase was
also soon crowded, and escape by that way
was next to impossible. The greatest loss of
life must have been among those in the fam
lily circle or top gallery. Those who hap
pened to be seated near the doors
succeeded in gaining the stairways and the
lower part of the house, but there were many
who got no further than the second floor
where they died. The flames made such
rapid headway that the floors fell in before
assistance could reach them. The shrieks of
women, the shouting and imprecations of
men, and the pitiful cries of children were
heard below, but there was no relief for them
1t was heart-rending situation to have hu-
man beings perish almost In sight of their
fellows; it was something terrible beyond
description.
As night approached two calcium lights
were placed In position and the work of re-
moving the ghastly forms of the dead, made
more so by the light, was continued. They
were under the galleries, but no estimate
could be made of the number. The charred
remains of the victims were taken out in front
and the rear of the theater, and rapidly,load-
ed in boxes and placed upon the undertaker's
wagon; still the pile of bodies in the cellar
did not seem to diminish.
Although the fire originated on the stage,
the loss or life among the theatrical company
was not as extensive as it might have been
imagined. Two lives were lost-two
young men in the flower of their
professional Gfe-Harry S. Murdoch and
Claude Burroughs. These two young
men were playing respectively pierre, "
the cripple and Picard, valet to the "Chev-
alier" At the moment when the fire was
discovered Murdoch was before the curtain
playing with Miss Kate Claxton. As soon as
the panic occurred, and a general rush
was made to escape, Murdoch and
Burroughs ran to their dressing rooms
to get their clothes to wear in the
street, their garments being very scanty in
the play. Their dressing-roOms were on the
same side of the stage, and the right wing
as viewed from the auditorium, and conse-
quently furthest from the stage door, Even
had that means of exit not been locked
by the panic-stricken janitor, the dressing
rooms were arranged in tiers, ap-
preached by narrow stairway, which
led up to the painter bridge, which spans
the stage. Murdoch room was on the sec
ond tier, and Burroughs on the third. Be-
fore they emerged, the stairway was one
sheet of flame, so eagerly and so rapidly
did the fire do its work that all chance of re-
treat was cut off. The unfortunate men were
driven back by the roaring flames step by
step. Still, supposing in the agony of their
peril that by some chance means
of descent from the other side of the
bridge might offer, they assembled to tbs
trembling structure. Here they were
last seen by J. H. Studley, amember of the
who had left his dressing-room a
few seconds before them and fought his way
through the flames to place of comparative
safety, from which he wac enabled to make his
escape Once on the bridge, their position
was helpless They could not descend by the
way they came up, and there was no other
means of escape but to leap.
At half-past ten o'clock this evening the
bodies of two men were digged from the
ruins, and both were identified by the rem
nants of their dresses worn on the stage.
There were twelve hundred persons IN the
theater, five hundred of whom were in the
galleries. This evening, notwithstanding the
of Miss Mutton, the latest play at
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