Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1896-06-04
DEATH AT A FEAST
AN AWFUL PANIC DURING THE
MOSCOW FESTIVITIES.
hundreds of Thousands Of People
wake n Rush to Secure Food and
presents, and mt least n Thousand
Men, Women and Children Are
to Denth-Many Ladies'
OF High Rank Killed
Copyright, By Associated Press

~ the popular feaS here in honor
oi the coronation of the czar caused
the trampling to death of about LOO
persons, including a woman who was
eiiVered OF a child during the excite
illent. In anticipation of the grand
holiday and popular banquet on the
hhodiJnskoji plain, tens of thousands
OF people began trooping toward the
fetrovsky palace, in front of which the
pam is situated, during the earliest
u OF the morning. Thousands
reached the ground the evening before
and camped. there or i'm the immediate
vicinity during the night in order to
make sure of good positions.
by dawn the mass of peasants about
the tables was really enormous and
they were all desperately hungry. some
OF Them having tasted, by choice of ne
costly, for nearly twenty-four hours.
Inc police did everything possible to
Keep back the crowd, but suddenly the
masses, controlled by some inexplica-
Die impulse or impatient to get at the
food, pressed forward and swept every
thing before them and overturned ia
bles and benches as if made of grass.
trampling hundreds under foot and
crushing the life out of a great number
of them. The old and the weak natur-
iiiy suffered most, and the poor woman
who gave birth to a child during the
excitement was trampled to death.
The infant is believed to have shared
the fate of its mother. The police and
military eventually succeeded in re-
storing order, carted away
The Dead and Injured,
and preparations We're made to pro-
coed with the banquet as if nothing I'M
usual had happened. Among the dead
found on the plain were ladies evident
ly of high rank, dressed in the finest
silk and adorned with the richest jew
els. The police barracks, to which the
bodies of the dead were taken by the
authorities, are besieged with persons
beSeeching for news of friends and
relatives. The scenes at the barracks,
while the process of Identification is
going on, are terrible in the extreme.
The remains of the dead will be con-
veyed during the course of the night
to the cemetery, where a large morgue
is located.
The disaster was due mainly to the
absence of the police who had not ar
rived so early in the morning at the
scene where the festivities were sched-
uled to take place. Fully 100000 per-
ons of all grades of society had
gathered on the plain at the time. Only
about a thousand attendants were in
charge and they seemed unable to
control the mob. Hoping to lessen the
pressure of the assembled thousands,
all moving toward n common center,
they tossed the packages and presents
into the midst of the crowd. This
seemingly precipitated the panic, since
n scramble to obtain possession of the
gifts ensued and the hollow piece of
ground near the center formed
A Death Trap
for the thousands. The buildings on
all sides of the plain, where. by the
way, Napoleon concentrated his troops
before moving upon this city, are in
many cases being used as temporary
hospitals, and the soldiers have been
rendering great service in removing
the dead and caring for the wounded.
Further time must elapse before ac-
curate figures as to the number actu-
ally killed and the number of persons
who were victims of the disaster, but
who are only sufferers from injuries,
is ascertained, but there is no doubt
that the official estimate of 1000 vic
Tins cannot be far from right, although
one report places the number at $500.
The disaster occurred between 3 and 6
o'clock in the morning. 1t was intend
ed that the banquet should commence
before noon, but the in mense throng
which had gathered around the sheds
u-In,.a tl,a p,I,nS urhrn tn no nraSnntn6
and the food distributed, became so
dense that the attendants were over
powered and thrown to the ground In
the mad struggle which commenced
for food and the gifts, many Of these
attendants being numbered among the
dead. The small force of police pres
ent made desperate attempts to con-
troll the people, but all their efforts
were futile. and men, women and chill
dren were trampled upon by hundreds,
The Shrieks md Groans
of victims being heard afar. For n
time the officials in charge of the ban
quet lost their heads entirely. The
crowds seemed to have gone mad with
rage and excitement, shouting and
cursins as they pressed onward over
n path strewn with dead and dying
human beings. Eventually, however,
he o and firemen, who were hasti-
ly summoned, restored order to some
extent. and then began the work Of
extricating the dead and injured, rang
ing them on the ground in groups of
ten. twenty and thirty at every humid
dred yards or so, and dispatching to
the city as speedily as possible in the
military transport wagons, furniture
vans. food wagons. etc, the injured,
giving preference at first to the wo-
men and children.
Some terrible. heart-rendiDg scenes
were witnessed among the survivors,
who were seeking relatives among the
victims. The latter were mostly peas
ants. and few of them have as yet
been identified. They were lying in
heaps. ms they had been e~ytricated,
their crushed. bloodstained and horri-
bly, distorted faces upturned in the
scorching sun. Gray haired men and
women lay alongside children and
sturdy men. all crushed as II beneath
heavy rollers. some of their heads be-
ing trampled into a shapeless jelly.
Two and Three Thousand.
The disaster is constantly gaining
in proportion as the Investigations by
the authorities continue. These r
made under difficulties. as the recovery
of the victims was conducted by hun
- x,ol,nfaa,c ond vnonu xyaro