The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-12-31

morgue and to the various undertaking
 establishments, to impress trucks into
 service and in these. upon costly blan-
 kets furnished by the dry goods stores
 in the vicinity, and covered with the
 same material, the dead were hauled
 away practically like such much cord
 wood. sE .e s... -..-z- The merchants in the vicinity of the
 theater rose to the emergency in splen- did fashion. Marshal Field & Go, Man. del Brothers, Schlesinger & Meyer,
 Carson, Pierie, Scott & Co. and other large dry goods stores sent wagonload after wagonload of blankets, rolls of linen and packages of cotton to be used in binding up the wounds of the injured
 and to cover the dead. The drug stores furnished their stock to anybody that asked for it in the name of people hurt in the fire. Doctors and trained nurses were on the ground by the score within half an hour after the extent of the calamity was known.
 One large truck ordinarily used for con. yeying freight to depots was so heavily
 loaded with dead in front of the theater that the two large horses attached to it were unable to start and the police were
 compelled to assist by tugging at the wheels. >1l " Will J. Davis, one of the proprfetors of the theater said: ''1here was no need, so
 far as I know of q single life being lost.
 There were over 40 exits to the theater.
 The building is fire proof, and if somebody far as those killed In the panic are con cerned, could have reached the street in
 safety. And of those who were suffocated by the gas, nearly all would have been out ht-k k1SNEk kt..., n-y,< 1atz
 der had been preserved in making their ex- its. As far as we have learned, everybody
 on the first floor except three escaped, al though some sustained bruises and other minor injuries. The great loss of life was
 in the first and second balconies. These
 combined will seat about 900 people The
 sale of seats had been good. but was not
 up to the capacity, and as far as 1 can 750 and 800 people, The top balcony, where the cheapest seats were located was the
 most crowded and 1t is here that the crowd
 found 1t most difficult in struggling toword the exits"
 It was declared tonight by the manage. ment of the theater that the fire was not
 caused by the grounding of an electric, wire or to any effect in the equipment of the
 theater. It started, they claim, by the
 bursting of calcium apparatus. The con-
 cussion was so great that it blew out the
 skylights over the stage and auditorium.
 This statement of the theater management is contradicted by many people who were
 In the theater, and who declare that before
 the explosion occurred they saw flames in a
 narrow streak creeping along the wall near the upper part of the drop curtain,
 BISHOP FALL0WS RENDERS AID. Among the hundreds of persons who rush ed to the rescue when the call of fire was heard on the streets. was Bishop Samuel Failows, who happened to be passing the theater Without fear or hesitation, he made his way through the darkness that was intensified by the volume of smoke that filled the auditorium to the top gallery and assisted in carrying out the victims. God forbid that I ever again see such a heartrending sight," said the bishop to- night. "I have been in wars and upon the bloody field of battle, but in all my experi ence I have never seen anything half SC grewsome as the sight that met my eyes
 when, with the aid of tiny lantern I was finally able to penetrate the inky darkness of that balcony. There was pile of twist ed and bleeding bodies ten feet high, with blackened faces and remnants of charred clothing clinging to them. Some were alive and moaning in their agony. Others, and by far the greater number, were dead. assisted in carrying many of the injured down and ministered to them the best ] could"
 It was the presence of the children, hun dreds of whom were in the audience, and the efforts of their frantic mothers, impsl led by their first thought to seek the safety of their young, that caused much of the pandemeniun. Alexander H. Revell, swhe had sent his little daughter. Margaret, with a little friend in charge of q maid to see the performance. five minutes after the fire l started, heard of it in his store and hastily