The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-12-31
MAD STRUGGLES FOR EXITS FOLLOW
Then With Roar of Double Explosion Flames Break
Through Roof and Windows.

this was Immediately done. 1t descended
about half way and then struck The fire
thus was given practically filue through
which strong draft was setting, aided by
in the front of the theatre. With a roar
and bound the names shot through the
opening over the heads of the people on
the first floor and reaching clear up to
those IN the first balcony, caught them
and burned them to death where they
sat.
ROOF LIFTED BY EXPLOSION.
Immediately following this rush of
flames there came an explosion which lift
ed the entire roof of the theatre from it's
walls, shattering the great skylight into
fragments.
As soon as the flames first appeared
beyond the curtain man In the rear OF
the hall shouted fire, fire. and the en-
tire audience rose as one person and made
for the doors. 1t is believed that the ex.
plosion was caused by the flames coming
in contact with the gas reservoirs of the
theatre, causing them to burst.
Will j. Davis, manager OF the theatre,
said after the catastrophe that if the peo-
pie had remained in their seats and had
not been excited by the cry of fire, not
single life would have been lost. This
is, however, contradicted by the state
ments of the flremen, who found numbers
of people sitting in their seats, their faces
directed toward the stage as if the per-
formance was still going on. 1t was the
ihn nf hn fipnY hot IL
mad been suffocated at once by the flow
Of gas which came from behind the ashes
tos curtain.
AS nearly as can be estimated at the
present time about 1900 people were in
The theatre. Three hundred of these were
on the first floor, the balance being in the
two upper balconies and in the Railways
oack OF them.
DOORWAYS CHOKED WITH DEAD
The theatre is modelled after the Opera
Comique in Paris and from the rear of
Zach balcony there are three doors leading
out to passage ways toward the front of
the theatre. Two of these doorways are
at the end of the balcony and one in the
center. The audience in its rush for the
outer air seems to have for the greater
part, chosen to flee to the left entrance
and to attempt to make it's way down the
eastern stairway leading into the lobby
OF the theatre. Outside of the people
rrned and suffocated by gas, it was in
these two doorways on the first and Sc
cond balconies that the greatest loss of
life occurred.
C--44.5TLY FIGHT FOR LIFE.
When the firemen entered the building
the dead were found stretched in a pile
reaching from the head of the stairway at
least eight feet from the door back to
point about five feet in the rear of the
door. This mass of dead bodies in the
centre OF the door way reached to within
two feet OF the top of the rassageway.
All OF the corpses at this point were wo-
men and children.
The fight for life which must have taken
place at these two points, is something
that Is simply beyond human power adc-
quately to describe. Only faint idea of
its horror could be derived from the as
pect of the bodies as they lay. Women on
top of these masses of dead had been over
taken by death as they were crawling on
their hands and knees over the bodies of
those who mad died before. Others lay
with arms stretched out IN the direction
toward which lay life and safety, holding
in their hands fragments CT garments not
their own. They were evidently torn
from the clothing Of others whom they
had endeavored To pub down and tIample
lnderfoot as they fought for their own
ives
As the police and firemen removed lay
" after layer of dead in these doorways,
he sight became too much even for them,
hardened as they are to such scenes, to
endure. The bodies were in such an in
mass, and SO tightly
amned between the sides of the door
md the walls that it was impossible to
jft them one by one and carry them cut.
The only possible thing to do was to
eize limb or some other portion of the
,ody and pull with main strength.
MEN WEPT AS THEY WORKED.
Men worked at the task with tears run |
ling down their checks and the sobs
If the rescuers could be heard even in the /
lall below where this awful scene was !,
icing enacted. A number of the men were |
to abandon their task and give |
t over 20 others whose nerves had not as I
ret been shaken by the awful experience
AS one by one the bodies were dragged |
ut of the water soaked blackened mass !.