Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1903-12-31
THE LOSS OF LIFE IN CHICAGO.


Throughout the City-Crape on
Many Doors.
Chicago, Dec. 31.-First reports con-
corning the loss of life at the fire at the
Iroqutus Theatre yesterday evening we're
not much exaggerated. II is now known
that over six hundred persons persisted
in one way or another. The descrip-
tons of the scenes incident to the panic
and those in connection with the rescue
OF the manned, dying and dead show
the calamity to have been more horrible
than any similar disaster which has oc-
Cured in this country.
Hundreds are lying this morning be-
tween life and death with limbs broken
and burned at their, homes and in hosplt-
ais, while every undertaking establish
ment in the city is filled with dead bodies,
many of which will never be identi-
fed.
The disaster was caused by the explo-
sion of calcium light while the play of
''Mr. Bluebeard'' was in progress. As
the flames gained Roadway Eddie Foy,
the chief comedian OF the company, stood
out from the panic stricken group on the
stage to assure the audience that there
was no danger. Even as he spoke the
great asbestos curtain was let down but
caught on one side and failed to work.
In another instant smoke burst out from
the top arch of the stage and from under
the bottom of the curtain, and before
man or woman in the seats could rise the
whole roof of the auditorium was in
blaze. Two gas tanks exploded in the
flies on the east side of the theatre, and
back, checking fumes beat down in a
cloud of death from every wall.
The panic which followed is beyond
description. Fear, uncomfortable and
terrible, reigned. Men and women
fought like wild beasts, filled only with
desire for self preservation. Little
babies slipped from their mothers up
lifted arms and in an instant their lives
were crushed under foot. Girls threw
themselves from the balcony and lay
crushed and dying till sufocation ended
their miseries. Over 1000 we're in the
orchestra seats, with easy access to the
doors gradually made their way to safety,
but most of them threw aside wraps,
hats, and everything that seemed to
burden them in their rush for life and
the open air In spite of the panic
and of the suffocation, nearly all OF
them were saved. But in the balcony
and the gallery, the angel of destruction
wrough his frightful work at will. The
flame and smoke gathering on these
upper floors caught the people before
they realized the full extent OF the
danger. Then when the full meaning
of the disaster came 10 them they
fought and battled with one another for
salety-battled like stampeded animals
with the deadly smoke curling all about
them and everything plunged into abso-
lutte darkness, not even friendly Ian
tern to show them the way out of this
house of death being in evidence.
Barely five minutes after the first alarm
was turned in iremen were struggling
into the theatre, making their way, in
some miraculous manner, through the
maddened mob that was pouring out of
the auditorium, and doing what little
they could, Ut only to check the fire
which was fast turning the whole inte-
rior shell into caldron, but to aid the
frantic hundreds in the upper balconies
by ladders stretched from the main floor.
A few, thirty at most, were rescued in
this way, and then the firemen, after con
trolling the flames, abandoned their
lengths of hose to 90 with the fast gather
ing police and manfully reach to what
waited for them on the upper stairways
and in the balcony seats. Here was no
more struggling, no more frantic haste.
Hundreds, with homes in every part of
the city still showing at their windows
Christmas wreaths, still filled with the
decoratiOnsof holiday seasons, lay beyond
all through of worldly things in silent
heaps of death.
II was in the balconies that the horrors
we're enacted Before those in the sec
ond balcony could reach the stairway,
escape was cut off by the flames and the
only chance for life was in the made
quate fire escapes on the north side of
the building. In stampede that only
those who persisted possibly could picture,
the hundreds of men, women and child
ren who saw their only chance for life
struggled to seize the opportunity. Out
of the struggle, as nearly as can be esti-
mated, less than 100 emerged to gee
the light of day again, and some of these
may die from the burns and the breath
ing of the hot gas that fouled the
air Of the theatre.
Horrifying and yet apparently in
separable from great disasters, was the
work of ghouls who robbed the pockets of
the dead and tore the rings from their
fingers. In the blackness of the theatre
they could work unobserved, but it was
not long before the police had dis
covered their presence and made war on
them.
All who escaped from the burning
theatre give thrilling descriptions of the
scenes through which they passed in
fighting their way to theOpen air.
With daylight this morning police and
firemen again took up theirse in the |
blackened ruins, working under the
tottering swayiDg walls and the waver-
ing roof that threatened to collapse
every moment. All suspense centred
nhnnt the mnrples. where the hlackened |