The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-02-09
SCENES OF HORROR.
Details OF the Destruction of n Russi an
Circus---IIundreds of Lives Lost.

The Vienna correspondent of a London
paper gives the following details of the re-
cent burning of a Russian circus
The performance had reached the fifth
item in the programme, some clowns being
in the ring, when another clown in acting
costume rushed in, shouting " Fire ~ At
first the people thought this was part of the
performance, and laughed; but Immediately
afterward the rlngmaster rushed in and gave
the alarm. The scene of horror that ensued
was indescribable. The audience were SO
closely packed that motion was almost i'm
possible. Some in despair flung themselves
from the galleries, and parents unable to
save themselves made desperate attempt to
save their children by throwing them down
into the ring. Some of the men wearing the
long coats of the Russian Jews were en-
tangled on spikes and remained hanging in
The air, while the whole building resounded
with heartrendinG cries, In the ring, where
the clowns had oeen performing, there was
carpet, and for little while the children we're
safe IN the center of this; but when the
grown-up PEOPLE in their despair began
jumping from the dress circle and galleries,
the whole ring became one ineytricable mass,
III which the children were trampled TO death
or suffocated before the flames reached
them. But even this was not the worst. The
horses soon became unmanageable, and
about & dozen of th5m. driven mad with
pain am. tcrror, broke into the ring. tramp
ling to death the people huddled together
there. All this occurred in less time than 1t
takes to describe, and in twenty minutes all
was over--at least half the people who had
been in the building being burned TO death
or suffocated. At the windows and various
exits scenes of the most horrible description
were enacted, some of the strongest, in their
efforts to extricate themselves from the
struggling mass, forcing others weaker than
themselves into the flames.
The fire bripade waG sllmr Oued. Int the
engine was delayed by falling through the
ice, and when it arrived the water in the
tanks was frozen. The doors of the circus
opened inward, and the side entrances were
nailed up; Efforts were begun on Sunday to
recover the bodies. At the main entrance
to the circus lay the burned and blackened
bodies of a heap of victims, their heads
fairly outside the door. while their bodies
were held as though in a vice by
those who had crushed upon them
from behind. Further inside the, ruins
many of the bodies were burned to a
cinder. The total loss of life has been as
certained to be 26S, and of those 1877 had up
to last night been identified and claimed by
their relatives. Twenty-one bodies are still
awaiting Identification, while sixty others
have been literally burned to cinder and are
past all hope of recognition. Among those
who persisted are said to be two English
clowns, one of them named Weston. The
head of the Bourse committee and
the colonel of the police are
among the victims, the majority of
whom are said to be Jews. jew named
Bercsowac, whose wife and three daughters
were killed in the circus, attacked in the
open street on Sunday M. Korosiloff, the
chief of the Merchants Guild, and after Sc
verely wounding him with knife attempted
to commit suicide by cutting his own throat
1t is stated that Ko Dsiloff, in effecting his
own escape, had pushed back Bercsowac' e
wife into the flames. -Four women who lost
their husbands went mad in the confusion and
horror of the night.