The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-09-20

caped and realizing the seriousness of
 the situation rushed to corner near by and turned in a fire alarm. The depart
 ment came quickly and the arrival Of
 the wagons served to scatter the crowd which had gathered around the front or the church A squad of police was also
 hastened to the church and with the ire
 men finally succeeded in releasing the
 negroes from their pinioned positions Tn
 the entrance.
 The dead bodies were quickly moved
 and the crowd inside, finding an outlet. came pouring out. Scores of them lost their footing and rolled down the long steps to the pavement, sustaining broken limbs and internal injuries.
 A Sickening Sight.
 In an hour the church had been prac- ticaily cleared and the sight which greet ed the eyes of those who had come to aio the injured was sickening. Down the aisles and along the outside Of the peWs | the dead bodies Of men and women were strewed and the cries of the manned and crippled was heartrending. In a 1ew minutes the work of recovering the bodies | was begun and the walls of the relatives | of the dead who had waited on the out
 
 The Shiloh Church is located just in the edge of the South Highlands, the fashionable residence section of this city. and all the physicians living in thai part of town went to the assistance or the injured. As many of the suffering me- groes as could be moved by the ambu- lances were taken to hospitals ana the rest were laid out on the ground anu there the physicians attended them. Al least fifteen of those brought out in-
 jured died before they could be moved from the ground.
 During the stampede Booker T. Wash ington and several other prominent me- gro leaders were on the stage and were witnesses to the frightful catastrophe' None of those in the choir or in the pull pit was injured in the least For few minutes they attempted to restore order but seeing their efforts were futile, wait ed until the struggling crowd had ad- vanced far enough for them to pick up
 the dead and injured. Most of the dead are women and the physicians say in many cases they falnted and died from suffocation. A remarkable feature Of the calamity is that no blood was seen on any of the victims. They were either crushed or died from suffocation. Captain o'Brien a Witness. Capt. Frank P. OBrien, formerly Sher-
 fir of Jefferson County and one of the most prominent citizens of Birmingham,
 was a witness to the catastrophe. He
 lives within half block of the church
 and hearing the commotion, went to as- certain the trouble.
 As he reached the front of the church
 the crowd had begun blocking the en- trance, and in describing it he said: q have witnessed many appalling sights, but the wild scene at the head of those steps Is beyond description. Wildly excited negroes reached the top of the steps and began falling headlong down the incline. Others were pushed upon them and notwithstanding the Warn-
 ings from the outside the crowd contin- ued to push. In few minutes men and
 women were piled upon each other to height of ten feet. Presently a negro To- man with a baby in her arms mounted
 the mass and climbing over the bodies
 leaped to the ground without injury to
 herself or the infant. As quick as pos
 sibe a rescue party was organized and
 as soon as the entrance was cleared be- gan the removal of the bodies"
 The Rev. Dr. T. w. Walker, pastor of
 Shiloh Church, said tonight:
 Shiloh Church Is a modern brick struc-
 ture and has been completed at a cost
 of $75,000. There are four entrances to
 the building and the main one Is six
 teen feet wide. The deaths were caused
 by everybody trying to rush out of the