The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-16
WILD PANIC IN A TIIEATER
DOME COLLIPSES KILLTNG THREE
 AND INJURING MANY.


 sands of People Flock to the Scene The Theater Huge Pile of Lumber
 Death Roll Would Have Been Heavy
 but for the Warning Fall of Plaster. Cincinnati, Oct. 15.-"The Dangers of a Great City" on the stage of Robin- sons opera house tonight was cut short by a tragic realization by the actual dangers of great city. The house was fairly we'll filled, but not crowded. A little before $50 o'clock lady in the audience says she heard a rasping noise which continued for five minutes before the catastrophe. She gave no attention to it, thinking it was a part of the performance. Presently the plastering began to fall in small particles. Soon the clustering began to shower down in great chunks. It came from the ceiling which supported the dome. There was a rush from the gal lery, which was not very 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 croWdnS of the door obstructed the passage of people from the parquet, which ac- accounts in measure for the number of casualties. Nobody expected any danger than from the falling clustering. Suddenly, and with great crash, the great central truss of the ceiling, 80 feet long, and 90 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 scattering of joists and timbers. No one on the stage was harmed
 The news of the accident spread rap idly. There was a rush of patrol wag- ons and of firemen to the scene. The injured were carried to the Cincinnati hospital. The list at the hospital show ed three dead, five dangerously 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 slightly in jured, but able to walk home. A score of surgeons volunteered their assist ance to the hospital corps. The scene in front of the hospital doors was a sad one. Hundreds gathered there, clamoring for the names of the injured At the opera house ropes were stretched across all approaching streets | and the police had all they could do to keep the crowd from breaking through | There was rumor afloat that one man was missing. It was a wild story, for he could not be found in the opera house, where the debris was so scatter ed that it did not form a piled-up mess anywhere. The damage to the struc- ture was nothing at all to the stage, comparatively little to the gallery l which suffered most almost nothing to the dress circle and much less than one would think from the debris scat 1 tered around through the parquet where the main truss landed. The truss rested in the parquet very much il: the shape of capital V. The won der is that so very few were hurt.
 To-night's disaster recalls forcibly a more fearful one which took place in the same building in February, 1876 | Tonight there was q real cause for the panic and loss of life; then there was no cause whatever, except the foolish cry of fire started by a little spluttering from a calcium in the up- per gallery The house was packed mostly with women and children to witness an allegory of America given by hundreds of school children With the single cry of fire in such an assem- ply a score or more were killed and many others were injured
 | b, of 1,a ioh+ seems to be easily discovered. Among the first who entered the building after the dome had fallen was President George w. Rapp of the Cincinnati Chapter of American Architecture.
 Ut was not that dome" said he, pointing to the huge heap in the cen- ter of the floor, that caused the trou- ble. The fault lay with the roof truss es. The house has been built more than twenty-five years, and the wood shrunk until the bolts and nails af- forded the smallest possible security
 One of these trusses had routed away from its fastenings, it parted and threw the two sections down and these in their descent pulled the dome with them. The wood trusses are of pine and shrink very perceptibly in the | course or years. They should be eX- amined every five or six years. Mod ern structures are put up with steel trusses. The roof of this theater is liable to come down at any minute" The dead:
 l Unknown man.
 l Miss Lucy Cohen.
 Mrs. George Cleman.
 Dangerously injured--Mrs. Goldman, Mrs. Studder, Mary Studder, Mary Haas and an unknown woman.
 Seriously or slightly injured-Pearl Hall, Grace Connor, c. J. Weiss, Jacob Weyle, Mary Hess, John White, Mary Zeyle, Amelia Howe, Ella Mormon, Della Algrier and her three children, Stanley, Joseph and John; Daisy Fair head, s. E. Long, s. J. Fairland, T. E. Wiley, Fred Jenks, William Moten, w. J. McCabe, Clint Deal, Kate White, Maggie Studder, Amelia Veil, Samuel | Rosenbaum and Clint Steel.
 | VERDICT AGAINST CONSOLIDapED.