The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-12-21
THE WORST OF CALAMITIES.
Three Hundred Pleasure Seekers Burned
Alive-The Horrors of the Burning Of
Al. IL

Three Hundred Pleasure Seekers Burned
| AHve-Ths Horrors Of the Burning Of
the Brooklyn Theater.
BY the fire in the Brooklyn Theater
the sacrifice Of life was terrible. Three
hundred people miserably perished in
the smoke and flames. The large ma
jority of them were young men and
boys; only few women md children
suffered death 80 far as known. Most
of those lost were. occupants OF the gal
lery, or third tier Of the theater. In de.
scending the stairway they were met on
the second landing or second tier of the
theater by binding and suffocating
volume Of smoke, and fell in heaps on
the stairway. This was broken down
under their accumulated weight, and
they were precipitated upon the lobby
on the first floor of the building. The
flooring of the lobby in turn gave way,
and the entire body Of men thus en-
trapped by the smoke in their pathway
to the street, strangled and blinded, fell
victims to the flames. OF those who oc-
cupied the dress circle (ground hoor)
and the family circle (secopd tier), only
few appear to have been lost. Two
actors were burned alive, three scene
shifters and other assistants were seri-
ously if not fatally injured, and several
supernumeraries on duty behind the
scenes perished. The Brooklyn morgue
was early overtaxed in affording space
for the corpses, and one of the unoccu-
pied market places was converted into q
temporary morgue. The scenes at both
these places were heartrendipg; at the
place OF the disaster itself the excitement
was intense.
The play at the theater was the "Two
Orphans" presented by the Union
Square Theater company, of New York,
gathered to witness it. The last act was
cred, and the sceno of excitement among
the audience was terrible. In less than
a minute the passages were choked up,
the tbeater was filed with shouts of
maddened men and the piteous and fran
tic screams of women. Men forgot that
they were trampling on their fellows,
and, indifferent to all but their own
safety, scrambled upward and outward.
Husband became separated from wife
or child and friend from friend. The
parquet was quickly emptied of all save
those few who must have been trampled
down and suffocated near the lobby.
The fire had spread with astonishing
rapidity from the proscenium to the
eiling of the dome, and the black
smoke, drawn by draft like a steady
wind, rolled in upon the galleries and
added another terror to the gasping men
and women who, still free from the jam
on the stairway, dropped to the parquet
floor to perish in the heat and smoke.
/ There was great peri; and loss OF life on
the lobby stairs leading to the dress cir
Gle. The stream of people flowed on
swiftly, crushing some, carrying others
out on shoulders from the dress circle,
until stout lady caught her foot at the
landing in the stair rail and fell. The
way was blocked. Crushed and manned
men were piled one above the other.
Three policemen, one of them stripping
off his coat, extricated the lady and
opened the way again. Those who
could extricate themselves ran over q
mass of PROSTATE beings to the door.
AT about three o'clock in the morning
the fire had been nearly extinguished,
and the major part of the throng of
sightseers had gone to their homes,
ignorant Of the fatal consequences of
the confagration.
The flames had subsided sufficiently to
permit the fremen to make an inyesti-
cation near the main entrance of the
theater. Chief Nevins passed over the
trembling floor OF the hallway toward
the inner doorway. Inside the doors
the flooring had fallen in, leaving deep
pit of fire and flame, from which dense
smoke and steam assembled. Here
sickening spectacle met his horri6ed
gaze. Close up to the flaming furnace,
aud clinging to the splirtered verge of
the demolished flooring, was the body of
a woman, burned to crisp. Her hands
clasped the framework of the door in
desperate grasp. She had fought hard
for life. EviIently she would have es-
capped had not the flooring given way
beneath her. All the clothing was burn
ed off, and the features were so black.
ened that she was unrecognizable, and
the body was removed to the morgue,
where it awaits Identification.
At four o'clock in the morning the
flames were put out, and the heap of
debris was black and cold. From the
vestibule platform the fremen saw
most horrible ST ectacle. The mound
that had at first appeared to be simply
a heap of ashes proved to be almost
wholly composed of human bodies.
Heads, arms, legs, shoulders, shoes,
and here and there entire human re.
mains protruded through the, surface
| of the mound. Policemen and fremen
hesitated for moment before leapipg
down upon the sickening heap. An in
clined plane of plain deal boards was
hastily constructed to reach from the
tender vestibule platform to the pit. and
upon this ladder was rested. Upon
the ladder the men went to and fro.
| Upon the plane, coftins were hauled up
and down. At first the firemen lifted
the bodies from the debris, after having
carefully dug around them and loosened
them, and ten minutes was consumed in
exhauming each body. But as it became
apparent that there were scores and
| scores OF human remains, and that
day, and perhaps night, would end be-
fore the last corpse was taken out, less
tender means were used in the opera
tion, and the work assumed a more
earnest and energetic character. In
stead OF five men, ten men set at work
among the ruins, while on the vestibule
platform dozen sturdy iremen manned
the short ropes by which the collins,
laden with human remains, were drawn
up and dragged to the sidewalk. Allthe
bodies were bent into horrid shapes, as.
sumed in the struggles of death by suf-
location and by burning. Nine out of
ten OF, the corpses had an arm appraised
and bent to shield the face Somathino