Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-12-12
Graphic Details.


An American correspondent cabled from
Vienna the day after the great catastrophe the
following thrilling account of the affair:
Persons who have seen the dead in the fourth
gallery describe the bodies as all lying in the
position in which they had fallen-fOrward,
backward, upward, behind, together-in con-
yulsive, clinging masses. They were unable
to leave the gallery because the doors opened
inward. Even had they escaped death here, it
is scarcely possible that they would have
escaped 1t in the passages and narrow stair
ways plunged in total darkness and filled with
sutiocating fumes. Death came to them quiet
ly, however. A young Hungarian student,
who was in the third gallery, told me that no
sooner did the fire break into the auditorium
than the air became insuflerably sitting. He
managed toescape, but he saw scores fall
down suffocated before they reached the stairs,
and he only escaped by finding his way quickly
to the window of the upper lOggia. COmpar-
atively few people effected their escape from
the two upper galleries through the pitch
dark passage. Many fell at the narrew wind
ing stairway leading from one gallery to the
other. In the narrow circular stairway lead
ing from the second to the third gallery,
thirty bodies were found, fallen together.
MIR. BROWN,
of the firm of Brown Brothers & Co.. of New
York, who, with his wife and the entire family,
visited the Ring theater on Thursday after
noon, at the matinee concert, and therefore
left the theater abont an hour before the cata-
strophe, says that the stairways, narrow and
winding, leading from the lobby to the par
quet seats, were scarcely wide enough for two
persons to pass, and that he had vowed after
arriving in the open air, never to take his
family into such q death-trap again. The diff
ticuty OF escaping, even after leaving the aII-
ditorium, may be gathered from the narrative
of a young man who had a seat in one of the
galleries. He says that the galleries were
quite filled. The American medical students,
of whom there are $50 in Vienna, and who
usually frequent the moderate-price places,
seem TO have kept away altogether on the
fatal night, for not one is reported as missing,
although six German and Hungarian fellow
students are among the dead.
AN EYE WITNESS.
said that as soon as the fire burst through
the curtain into the auditorium, terrible cry
went up from the entire house. To spring up
and hasten to the exit was The work of mo-
ment. In the corridors the deepest darkness
prevailed. "With many others, / tried to
make my way in the dark, caught hold of the
coat OF person before me, and my own coat
was held by string of Others behind. Thus
We groped our way to the stairs; where also
it was pitch dark. All fell on one another,
but finally we reached the grand loggia.
While we were escaping we heard the piercing
shieks of the unfortunate who were either
crushed to death or suffocated by the smoke
and fumes. Those who could not escape by
the stairs hastened to windows of the loggia
1t was terrible time. Dense crowds strug-
gled together, those behind urging those in
front to spring out, or they should all die
Some made the spring and were caught by the
public below. Remained until the nets were
brought and the leap could be made in safety"
Yet few seem to have escaped so easily
To look at the dead bodies in the morgue and
at the krankenhaus tells more of the terrible
death which the victims met than the report
that any eyewitness has yet given. Some
appear to have died from suffocation alone.
TWO BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
are there with their faces scarcely dscolored,
looking as if they were only asleep. Another
youthful female figure lies there, only one
charred stump of her neck remaining, while
her body and lower extremities are untouched
The linen of her under-clothing is as spotless
white as when on the afternoon of the fatal
day she dressed herself for the play. Her
death is described easily. Caught in the
dense, surging crowd, the flames descended
upon them all, charring and consuming only
the heads with the fiery heat. Most of the
better preserved bodies show one arm uplifted
as if struggling for freedom, while the other
hand is closely pressed to the mouth to eX-
clude the destroying breath of the fire. 9th.
ers have the heads and upper part of the bodies
without Disagreement, while the feet and legs
are charred off. Other victims are represented
by the trunk alone. The heads, feet, and legs
are missing entirely. Those who were ex-
posed to the flames areas dark as Africans,
but with the form and features often faithfully
preserved.
The other hn1iac rafain tho form, of
THE LAST DESPERATE STRUGGLE,
the features expressing the final cramp of
agony. Others are fair women, some with
diamond rings still glittering on their fingers,
the only objects by which they can possibly be
recognized. They have been trampled to death
and then partly consumed by the fire. Some