The age-herald., 1898-01-04
MANY KILLED BY FALLING BUILDING Floor of the City Hall Collapsed
 at LoDdon, Ontario. TWENTY BODIES REMOVED The Total Number Of Injured May Never
 Be Known.
 CLOSE OF MUNICIPAL CAMPAIGN And Fully 2,000 People Assembled to Hear the Successful Candidates. AN oMINOUs CRACKLING OF TIMERS Then in a Moment the Speakers Platform Gave Way and the Occupants Were
 Hurled to the Floor-A Wild
 Struggle to Escape.
And Fully 2,000 People Assembled to Hear the Successful Candidates.
AN oM1NoUs CRACKLING OF TIMERS

London, Ont, Jan. 3.-Twenty-four are known to have been killed and many in jured by the collapse of floor in the city hall tonight. Tonight closed the municipal campaign, and the hall was crowded to hear the address of the successful candi- dates.
 The Dead
 At midnight the bodies of the following had been taken from the wrecked building and identified:
 F. Heaman, p. Leuxton, R. L. Rich, L. w. Burke, - Talbot, John Turner, John w. Bornland, Frank Robinson, c. Breckett, N. Carrothers, - Harris John Smith, A. Phillips, Ben Nash - Hilburn, James Mo- Lean, John Barridge, Oswald Bruce, B. Jacques, unidentified man, w. H. Dell, Stephen Williams, John Fellows, Allen Towe.
 List of Injured
 The injured, so far as can be learned, in- clude the following:
 Dr. Wilson, the mayor-elect, leg broken; Alderman Carrothers, slightly injured; Edward Morkin, Burgess. Wm. Gray, leg broken; Fleming, both arms broken; Wm Jones, water commissioner eleCl, Dduly DIuiScu, oOohuo 1e'hSiit OOAAtA Blanch, Alderman Neil Cooper, - Van Wyck, Geo. w. Yates, city editor of the News; Harry Passmore, reporter on the Advertiser.
 How many were injured will never be known, as those who suffered but slightly at once made for their homes or were cared for by friends. Those who were more seriously injured were carried to neighbor- f1nxy fn O to the hospitals or to their homes, after their injuries had been attended to.
 The dead were taken to the committee rooms of Alderman Parnell, the defeated candidate for mayor, directly across the street.
 At the close of the polls crowd gath cred in the city hall, where it has been the custom for years past for the successful candidates to address the electors.
 The Building Crowded.
 The building was crowded to the very doors, probably 2,O0O people being jammed in a narrow space. There was Hull in the proceedings, when the audience called for several of the newly elected aldermen at once, and there was some delay in securing a speaker to address them. Alderman Carrothers joined the mayor in an effort to secure quiet. In response to numerous calls R. M. Toothe was pushed forward to the plaform on which the speaker stood. As he reached it there was an ominous cracking, and the raised platform on which the mayor and newly elected alder men were seated seemed to pitch forward to the floor. There was a sagging of tim bers. and the next moment one hundred nrA- 1,rr1 act to the floor below. A beam running twenty feet along the center of the hall had given way and the crowded mass standing above that section of the floor was thrown in heap to the bottom. A large safe stood in one corner of the hall and with a huge steam coil, weighing half ton, came crashing down on the heads of the victims. Following the crash there was a wild rush for the doors. At the south door, where the majority of the crowd had en- tered, there was terrible panic. Those in front were thrown down by the oncoming rush, shrieking and fighting for the door and safety. Only one-half of the rear door, space of probably three feet was open, and in the mad rush no one thought to open the door in it's entirety and 800 people struggled through the narrow space, the strong bearing down the weaker.
 Within moment after the floor had fallen in there were not more than three persons in the hall on that portion of the floor which had not fallen.
 First Dragged Out.
 Alderman Neil Cooper was among the first to be dragged out of the mass of broken beams. He was quickly carried to an adjoining room and in a moment half dozen more were keeping him company.
 Several men endeavored to haul the wounded out of the pit From under the massive weight of the broken beams came many cries for help.
 The windows on the ground floor were broken in and the living and dead were tenderly passed to the waiting ambulances. An Investigation of the wreck after the catastrophe disclosed the fact that whole section of the floor had dropped, the joists having been as neatly cut off as though the work had been done with a saw.
 The building was an old one, having been erected in the early ifties. and of late years