Arizona weekly citizen., 1888-01-28
4 PANIC IN A THEATRE
The Senseiess Madness that Sometimes
 Takes Hold of People.


 It seems impossible, when you look around at gallant men and amiabl0 wOm- en, sitting placidly at a play, that in a moment, Ou the utterance of one word, they can be turned into dumb, driven cattle, senseless. suicidal idiots. But it is so. Any night the auditorium of a fashionable theatre may echo to some un- fortunate note of alarm In an instant the gray haired banker, whose dignity gave tone tO his whole section, Is walking up the backs of women and over the heads of children
 At the Park theatre one night the theatre that happily was destroyed by fire about three hours before the time when 1t would have been packed by New York g best people tO witness Mrs. Langtry's . debut, some dude, entering up the unsafe and tOrtuOus stairway, threw his cigarette through the iron grating of the steps Some accumulated rubbish began to smoker, and volume of smoke poured into the auditorium. About half the audi ence sitting there knew that the stage had an enormous square opening direct upon Twenty street-a door not ten feet from the level of the street. Every soul tn the house could have gone over the low fOot.ishts. crossed the stage and been in Twenty second street in three minutes time. They had all entered the theatre by the crooked, narrow passage; they all knew is miserable limits; they saw the smoke coming in at that narrow passage, and yet when some scared scamp near the door jumped Co his feet and screeched ''FircT' they all wth one accord started to the rear, regardless of life or limb.
 LUckily that night 0 stalwart police man, with the lungs of a StentOr, calmly said: ''There ain't no fire; it's been put out He grabbed the first lot of mad people and bodily put them down into seats; but for a few minutes there was the widest kind of scrimmage A well known and dignified citizen had sat in high bred ease two seats ahead of me dur ing the performance. As the panic struck him he rose, mounted over the back of his sent and started Co walk on the shOul- ders of some fashiJnably attired ladies. It seemed an occasion for remOnstrance, and l had a slight but severe remark to make, and made i- with an opera glass; the old gentleman took the kindly hint and concluded to walk on his legs in the aisle, bat he had made a fair start tO tramp to safety over his fellow creatures.
 Another time, in the Cosmopolitan hall, the place was crowded for first night of minstrelsy. There was a low gallery run ming round the building, supported on a series of iron posts. During the evening one Of these posts slipped of the ''blOck" and crashed through into q billiard saloon in the basement; the gallery in that par ticular spot sagged, creaked and some beam split with alarming noise. In a moment all w excitement in the crowded gallery. ] was sitting a few feet in front of this spot, and being fearful the people might jump down on my devoted head, pushed my escort, Q very important and self-sufiicient gentleman, and suggested We get into two broad aisles beside him, where, if people jumped, they would not jump on Us. l got no response, and might as well have pushed at the side of the house, he was SD immovable. With ''ievel fronting eyeids" he confronted nothing and looked at it steadily He clasped O hard Derby hat against his stomach and was as near petrifactiOn as Is consistent with life
 After the alarm subsided and the per formance was resumed, it was discovered that my scared friend had crushed his hat on his body as flat as a mustard plaster, and pressed the nails of one hand SO venOmously into the other that the blood had started through the cut skin.-Cin- cinnati Enquirer.