The climax. [volume] (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1887-1897, 1889-12-18
THEATER PANIC.
JOhnstOWn, Pa, Visited by An
other Calamity.
The Cry of Fire Suddenly
Raised in an Opera house

Causes the Audience to Stampede.
Twelve Persons Lose Their Lives and
Number Are Seriously Injured in the
Crush-Water Thrown to Check the
Panic-NO Real Cause for Alarm.
JoHNsTOwN, Pa, Dec. II. Tuesday
night an audience Of 900 was listening to
the play of Uncle Toms Cabin in Parke
opera house. An alarm of fire was
sounded at 1870 and a panic ensued that
resulted in the death of twelve persons,
probable fatal injury of six others, and
painful bruises to perhaps seventy or
eighty more.
The Killed and Injured.
The killed were:
E. Bigler, aged 6.
Mr.. hester, %.
Charles Friant.
Miss Clara Burns, 10.
George Homer, II.
George Stonaker, 90.
John Carl.
John Miller, colored, of Chambersburg.
Isaac Falor, 60.
Mrs. Burns, 40.
T. FleishOur.
Lizzie Claycomb, 10.
Seriously injured are Charles Vaughn,
Albert Owens, Mrs. Plat, Joh1f Heimer,
Mrs. Lester, Richard Worthington.
A Fire Trap.
The opera house is a fire trap, and the
audience thought the fire was in the
building.
The manager tried to quiet the crowd,
but they fought, struggled and screamed
like lunatics, while the police attempted
to force them back, and it is said injured
some by clubbing them.
Turned the Hose on EN-.
The hose was turned on the frantic
crowd, and by this means they were
stopped in the mad crush.
The bodies were taken to the mOrgUe,
and the sad scenes of the JOhnstOWn
food were enacted on a smaller scale.
The fire was not in the theatre, but in
barn in Kernville.
Five More Reported Dead.
LATER-The opera house horror is
fully as terrible as was first reported.
The side walls and steps of the stairway
present a sickening sight, being covered
with blood. Ten bodies are now lying at
the mOrgue and five more of the injured
are reported to have died.
The cause of the death in all cases, but
one, George HOrner, was the crushing at
the doorway leading to the street, in the
frantic efforts Of the people to get out of
the building. A heavy smoke rising from
a small building near the opera house
caused some one to ring the fire bell
near by.
Some one in the gallery, said to have
been a boy yelled fire and panic
ensued, men and boys jumping from the
gallery onto the heads of the people. A
gallery seat broke with a crash, increas-
ing the fright, as it was thought that the
building was falling.
A hundred and fifty or more people
crowded into the narrow stairway at
once, and were pressed upon so closely
that those in front fell in the doorway
The stairway was piled full Of strug-
Cling people, and the UprOar could be
heard squares away. The police fought
back those who were trying to get out
by walking over the unfOrtunates packed
in the stairs.
A great crowd assembled on the streets
and also had to be fought back from the
theater exit, to give room to remove
those lodged there. These latter were so
tightly wedged to the floor and steps
that strong men could not pull them out,
and it was not until the crowd upon the
upper part of the stairs had been forced
back that effective relief could be given
to the dead and dying in the doorway
below.
The Actors Kent Cool