The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1897-10-21
THE DOME OF ROBINsON's OPERA
HOUSE, CINCINNATI, FELL IN
DURING A PERFORMANCE.
AUDIENCE HID WARMING OF DANGER
Falling PIastering Had Started an
Exit From the House When the
Crash Cnme-Three Killed and
~ Number Injured.

| Cincinnati, Oct, 10.-"Ihe Dangers Of
Great City on the stage of Robin
sons opera house tonight was cut short
in its performance by tragic realza
ton of the actual dangers of a great
| city.
The house was fairly well filed. A
| little before $50 lady in the audience
| says she heard a creeping noise, which
continued for five minutes before the
catastrophe. She gave it little atten.
ton, thinking it was a part of the per.
Torrance. Presently the plastering be.
gan to fall, in small particles at first
but enough to alarm some of the timid
or cautious, who retired. A little later
the plastering began to shower down in
great chunks.
1t came from the ceiling above which
supported the dome. There was rush
from the gallery, which was not well
filled. The balcony was soon emptied.
Those in the dress circle retired as
promptly as possible, and, strange to
say, without an apparent panic. The
crowding of these to the door OBJ
structed the passage of people from the
parquet, which accounts, in u measure,
for the number of casualties. Nobody
expected at that moment any other dan
ger than from the falling plastering.
Suddenly and with a crash the great
central truss of the ceiling, eighty feet
long and thirty feet wide, came plung-
ing down. The ends of it struck on the
two gallery wings and doubled it up
in the center, sending it down into the
parquet with a great Settlement Of
joists and timbers. Nothing on the
stage was harmed. Of course there were
means from the injured, and, as often
happens, loudest from those least hurt.
The news spread rapidly and there
was a rush of patrol wagons and Off
GERS to the scene. The salvage corps
with it's wagon was the first on the
ground, and it was followed by all the
police patrol wagons, who CARRIED the
injured to the Cincinnati hospital. The
list of those sent to the hospitals show
ed three dead, five dangerous if not
fatally wounded and twenty-siX more or
less seriously injured. In addition to
these a large number. probably twenty
five or thirty, were so slightly injured
as to be able to walk home. OF the
dangerously wounded at the hospital
several will require amputation, yet
every one is refusing to submit to the
operation. A score of surgeons volun-
teered their assistance to the hospital
corps.
The scene in front of the hospital
door was a sad one. Hundreds of peo-
pie were there clamoring for the names
of the injured. An attendant stood at
the door with n list of names brought
to the hospital and answered these anX-
ious inquiries. Many names were in
quired for that were not in the hos
pital list.
At the opera house police were stretch
ed across all approaches and had all they
could do to keep the crowd from crush
ing through. All sorts of wild rumors
were afloat and public curiosity was on
tip-toe. all the more ardently because
of these rumors.
The damage to the structure was COM
para lively light. The truss rested In
the paruuet very much in the shape OF
a capital "V." The wonder is that so
few were hurt. and of the few hurt
that so many escaped with slight in
jurieS.
Tonight's disaster recalls forcibly
more fearful one which took place in
the same building in February in 1876.
Tonight there was Il real cause Tor the
panic and loss of life; then there. was
no cause whatever except the Wlckeuiy
foolish cry of fire, started when il little
suffering hiss came from the calcium
light in the upper gallery. -,
The house was packed mostly with
women and children to witness an allie
CORY of america" given by hundreds
of school children. With the single cry
of fire in such an assembly the mischief
was DONE Plunging into the aisles and
rushing down the stairways and
towards the wide doorway leading to
the street. the inevitable blockade OF
human bodies occurred and the wild and
savage struggle for escape by those be-
hind completed the dreadful mischief.
Only when all outward progress was aD-
solutely blockaded and time was given
to the living to use their senses to dis
cover that there was no fire and no
cause for alarm did the insane panic
cease. Then followed the sickening
rescue of the score or more of the dead,
and many others who were injured.
Tonight's catastrophe, however had
a real cause for panic, and if the con-
ditions tonight had been the same as
those of the 1876 horror the result
would have been fearful beyond calcu-
lation.
The dead are:
Miss Lucy Cohen.
Mrs. George Kleeman.
Unknown man.
Dangerously injured:
Mr.. Goldman.
Mrs. Stuuuer.
Mary Studder.
Mary Hams.
An unknown man.
Seriously or slightly injured:
Pearl Hall, Grace Connor.- G. *.
Weiss, Robert Weyle, Harry Hess, John
White. Amelia Weyle, Mary Howe, Ella
Norman, Della Algiers and her three
children. Stanley, Joseph and John;
Daisy Fairhead, s. e. Long, $. Fair
land T. E. Wiley. Fred jerks, William
Molen. w. ]. McCabe. Clint Deal, Kate
White. Maggie Studder, Amelia We'll,
Samuel Rosenbaum and Clint Steel.
The cause of the accident was ait
tributed to the wood trusses which had
rotted away from their fastenings.
A singular coincidence is that the play
announced for next week is entitled
Under the Dome"
Good Enough to BE True.
The Nillain-Egletts was placed under
arrest last night as he was leaving the
or