The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1876-12-16
Saturday, December le, '7e.
NEW YORK ooRREsPoNpENCE.
The Brooklyn ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Gomptrollership---Bets.
New York, Dec. 8, 1876.

New York, Dec. 8, 1876.
EDITOR CHIEF:
Last Tuesday night, the Brooklyn
Theatre was burned. during the pro-
gress of play, and nearly three hun.
dred people lost their lives. The
Theatre is a building $50 feet deep by
20 wide, in the centre of Il block, with
a passage leading from Washington
Street, perhaps 30 feet wide. The
stage is so feet deep, the lobby III front
20, leaving on the ground floor ~
feet, which is seated. Above this
ground floor, the parquette, is a gal
lery, the dress circle, which extends
over the parquette perhaps 3O feet.
and above that the gallery proper.
The entrance to the dress circle and
the gallery is from the lOb0y,outside,
being simply a staircase. The dress
circle and gallery people go up one
tiight.together and diyerge at a land
ing one flight up.
The stage is filled with thel most
infiammable material imaginable.
The flies are short curtains of can
vas painted in oil, to represent skies
or clouds or what may be required
mountedi on the lightest pine
w9Od, and the 6 wings and the
Z" flats are also painted canvas, on
the lightest possible frames, and il
must he taken into account that al
most the entire space back of the
curtain except that show to the people
when it is raised, is filled with scenery
of different plays, stacked up, which
makes the "behind the scenes " of
theatre "a magazine of conibnstibles,
almost as dangerous as powder
house. The play was the =" Two
Orphans" and che scene was boat
house. In this scene there are not
only the wings representing the sides
of o house, but the ceiling is repre-
scented which is also painted canvas.
The theatre WAS full with delighted
audience. By some accident one OF
the flies was blown against "a gas jet,
and one of the employees attempted
to cut it loose. 1t fell. all in ii blaze
upon the ceiling of the scene below
and in an instant that was in blaze
The actors on the stage saw it, but
hoped it would be extinguished and
went on. with their parts, but it had
too much Roadway. In moment
the painted canvas was on fire, the
affrighted audience rose, and wild
rush at the doors commenced. All
order was at an end, the only thing
forl every one was to get ont OF the
hell that was raging. The people in the
crowded gallery precipitated them
selves down the tortuous passage, and
at the Handing met the equally Wild
crowd from the dress circle, and the
two masses became wedged III, so
that passage was impossible, and
there was "a dead lock which humau
strength WAS impossible to break.
All this was the work of "a minute.
In the meantime, the stage Was a
lurid furnace, the oil and the light
wood of the wings and stage sets
belching out great volumes of smoke
and flame, filling the theatre-and to
add to the certainty of doom, the
ceiling of the. building was made of a
sort of pasteboard, which was us com
bustible as the canvas, and the flames
ran along that like powder, making
a furnace right above the heads OF
those in the gallery. And all this
time the only exit from the dress
circle and the gallery was blocked by
the two masses. that had met at the
landing common to both, and escape
was impossible. The fire leaped from
one part of the building to another,
the wooden seats caught and blazed !;
the untortunates, wedged in and help
less, fell, suffocated BY the smoke
and roasted by the fire. The supports
We're burned of, and finally the mass
fell, with probably three hundred and
fifty burned men and women in its ter
iible embrace.
The sight the next morning was
horrible aud sickening. Where the
galleries fell hundreds of bodies burned
and Scared beyond Identification
weis found, and all through the debris,