The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-05-08
A THOUSAND PEOPLE HURT
A sENsELEss TRAGEDY IN CHICAGO.
Exploding Fireworks Causes Panic, in
Shich n Hundred Thousand People
TrampIe Upon helpless Women and
Children-A Scene OF Terror.

CHICAGO, April 3O.-One hundred thousand
men, women and children were tossed in waves
about the big lake front park tonight. Half
hundred people are known to have been seri-
ously hurt, a number perhaps fatally. Scores
of others suffered painful injuries. The people
were massed in walls as solid as the
frOwning stones OF the auditorium against
which they were hurled when the first
strong blow of excitement broke the great mob
into scores Of tremendous rushes and
stampedes. Under the glare of the
fireworks, which the throng had gathered
to see, the faces of thousands OF women
showed white and pleading. The shrieks
OF children, trampled under foot, could
be plainly heard above the booming Of
the big bombs and the cheers of the unaffected
parts of the vast assemblage. First the pres
sure on the west side forced thecrowdagainst the
auditorium, Studebaker's building aud the art
institute. Then the reaction came, and with a
great roar the mob was forced eastward almost
TO the lake side. The Illinois Central suburban
trains were forced to stop, powerless to get
through the press of people.
Aside from the presence of the great crowd
itelf, the cause of the excitement was the huge
serpentine fireworks. One OF them shot out
from the stand and squirmed through the peo-
pie, scOrching everybody in its course. Another
followed a moment later, seeming literally TO
nip the crowd in two.
Women tainted everywhere and were bru-
tally trampled upon as they lay in the grass.
A movement of the crowd away from the
threatened horror of wholesale panic was
met by the movement in the opposite direction,
and the result terrible convulsion of the
whole body.
Seventy-fve policemen sent by Capt. Bar
tram to keep order were tossed about as If they
might have been on a billowy sea. But the
worst was to come. Congress-st. is mar
row alongside the auditorium, and when
the greatest jam came. as it soon after
ward did, when the fireworks was over and the
people who now started westward encountered
the multitudes who had been unable TO see
the pyrotechnics, the collision was frightful.
Men fought and cursed and bore each other
down, the women and children meanwhile get
ting the worst of the struggle. They were
knocked under foot and ground by thousands
of heels, their cries going unheeded in the
din. The policemen in despair threatened to
shoot the men who were pressing resistlessly
over the unfortunate weaklings Some officers
did draw their revolvers and fire in the air to
nothing could stay the outbreak.
1t was not until the west-bound thousands at
last forced their way out into Wabash-ave
that the wild scene ended. The victims were
hurriedly gathered up and carried 10
their homes and the hospitals. No time
consumed in asking questions keeping
records. Ii is impossible to give the number
of persons hurt in the jam. One estimate
places il at not less than a thousand who
tained injuries of some sort.
Following were among the injured:
Mss MARY SCHUBERT, 143 Twenty-ffth-st.,
probably fatal.
LENA SCHUBERT, sister of above.
Mics KITTY CONNORs 43 Safest.
MRS GEO. F. FARRoN, 3130 Dearbon-st
probably fatal.
Miss LIZZIE Howard, Forty-third-st.
Mrs. f. T. BRADY, 625 Sixty-third-st., prob
ably fatal.
Mrs. CROWLEY. 3716 State-st.
FRED GRANT, aged thirteen. probably fatal,
AUGUST SCHULTZ, 155 MOnroe-st
FRED EsESBERG, aged thirteen.
JOHN HOoLIHAN, 27S Aberdeen.
GEORGE NORTHINGToN, wagon manufac-
turer.
JOHN Hull. his foreman.