The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1877-03-10
THE HORRORS OF HELL"
Further Details of the Fatal Church
CALAMITY.

Further Details of the Fatal Church
CALAMITY. 81
New York, March 9.--At the time
of the alarm, last evening, in the st.
Francis Xavier church, which result
ed SO disastrously, Father Langiacke
was preaching on "Hell and the hor-
rors of the damned" and as the preach.
er was picturing thu torments of pur-
gatory, a young woman in the corner
of the gallery, overcome by her feelings,
tainted and gave utterance to a hyster-
ical scream, startling the worshippers
and causing them to spring to their
feet. The next moment some reckless
person cried fire." and this gave rise
to the panic. Father Langiacke i'm
plored the people to keep their seats, as
there was no cause for alarm. Father
Merrick, the pastor, heard the screams
and rushed into the sanctuary. He
called upon the congregation to keep
their seats, as there was no fire. The
congregation was dismissed, and as the
organ began to play the women in the
main body of the church and gallery
passed out in an orderly manner. The
people occupying that portion of the
gallery where the commotion had begun
and centered, rushed toward the exit
from the gallery and, almost craZed
with fear, pushed and fought their way
into the narrow stairway leading to the
Sixteenth street stairway, which is four
feet wide and within three or four steps
of the bottom, makes a sharp turn be-
fore it reaches the vcstibule. The
crowd of maddened ONE rushed
down stairs, and would probably have
all reached the street in safety but, at
the bend in the stairway, a. aged and
very stout woman, in her eagerness to
reach a place of safety, fell headlong
down stairs. Before she could regain
her feet the frantic crowd pressed on
toward the vestibule and come upon
her PROSTATE form, and those in the
foremost ranks fell upon her. In a mo-
ment the passage was choked and a
scene of the widest confusion and most
intense excitement ensued. The crowd
in the rear passed on with almost ire
sistible forces and nothing could be
done to stop their advance. The craZed
women fought their way toward the
choked-up stairway, trampling upon
those who had fallen in front and
crushing the life out of them. They
screamed and fought like maniacs, and
every effort to hold them back so that
the stairway could be cleared was of no
avail. Father Whyte and several 9TH
er priests, who were in the sanctuary
at the time the panic occurred, rushed
round to the front of the church and,
assisted by ONE patrolmen, dragged
out some of the women who were lying
on the stairs. A number of women
were then got out alive and were only
slightly injured. In the struggle for
life they we're almost denuded of their
clothing. As the priests and police,
aided by a number of citizens, made
their way up the staircase, they found
lying on the steps four other women
and a small boy. They were taken out
to the open air, but life was extinct.
One woman, Mrs. Forbes, was brought
out alive and apparently not much in
jured. She walked with the assistan ce
of the police to the drug store on Sixth
avenue, near Sixteenth street, where
she expired in a few moments.
This forenoon, in st. Francis Xavier's
church, where the calamity of last
night happened, a solemn mass of re-
QUEEN was offered for the dead, and
prayers were said for the speedy recov-
cry of the Onnde