The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-31

hundreds of men. women and children were rushing toward the theater.i
 The building in which the calamity oc- cured stands midway between State and Dearborn streets on the north side of 1 Randolph street Although every availa- ble policeman within call was immedi- ateiy hurried to the scene. the men placed in lines at the end of the block, allow ing nobody to enter Randolph street from either Dearborn or State, it was found for. a time almost impossible to hold back the frenzied crowd that pressed for ward. many of them having friends or relatives in the theater and anxious to | learn something of them.
 WORK OF POLICE s. .s.- IS MOST ADMIRABLE.
 The conduct of the police was beyond all praise. The officers held their ground firmly and gently pushed back all those who sought to gain an entrance to the theater. although In some instances fran I tic men anxious to look for their loved ones actually beat the officers with their i fists in their rage at being refused en- | trance.
 In spite of the efforts of the police. however, a large number of people suc- ceeded in breaking through their lines. and entering the theater, and in many cases did heroic work in rescuing the inc jured and carrying out the dead. Among these was Alderman Thompson who un- aided. carried to the street the bodies of eight women. The first newspaper men | on the ground also carried out many of the dead or the injured. The building was so full of smoke when the firemen first arrived that the full extent of. the catastrophe was not immediately grasped until a fireman and | a newspaper man crawled up the stair | way leading to the balcony. holding hand kerchiefs over their mouths to avoid suf- ! location. As they reached the doorway | the fireman, whose vision was better trained in such emergencies. seized his | companion by the arm. exclaiming: Good God. man. don't walk on their | faces"
 ] The two men tried vainly to get through 4 the door which was Janrned with dead I women piled higher than either of their heads. All the. lights in the thsafAe were i out and the only illuminatlonS came through the cloud 6f snsplke that hung over the interior of the theater. The two l men immediately hurried to the floor be- l low and informed Chief Mushan1 of the fire department that the bodies were { piled thigh in the balconies and prompt assistance must be rendered if any of them were to be saved. The chief at once called upon all of his men in the vicinity to abandon work on the fire and come at once to the res- cue. Over five hundred lights were quick | ly carried into the building from @ near by hardware house and the work of res- cue commenced. So rapidly were the bod ies brought down that for over an hour there were two streams passing in and out of the theater entrance, one carry Il -.S | returning to get more.
 The theatre is modelled after the Opera | Comique in Paris, and from the rear of each balcony there are three doors lead | ing out to passageways toward the front of the theatre. Two of these doorwayS | are at the end of the balcony, one being in the centre The audience in its rush | for the outer air, seems to have, for the l greater part, chosen to flee to the left entrance and to attempt to make it's way down the eastern stair way, leading into the lobby of the theatre.
 l Outside of the persons burned and suf- located by gas, 1t was in these two dooI . ways on the first and second balconies | that the greatest loss of life occurred. | When the firemen entered the building. the dead were found stretched in a pie reaching from the head of the stairway at | least eight feet from the door back to a point about five feet in the rear of the door. This mass of dead bodies in the centre of the doorways reached to within two feet of the top of the passageway.
 HORRIBLE BATTLE
 | FOR THE OPEN AIR.
 All of the corpses at this point were wo- men and children. The fight for liie which must have taken place at these two | points Is something beyond human power l ... | of It's horror could be derived from the aspect of the boGAes as they lay Women on top of these masses of dead had been | overtaken by death as they were crawl ing on thelr hands and knees over the
 bodies of those who had died before Others lay with arms stretched out in the direction toward which lay life and safety holding Tn their hands fragments | of garments not their own. They were evidently torn from the clothing of oth- CTS whom they had endeavored to pull down and trample under foot as they fought for their own lives.
 As the police removed layer after layer l of dead in these doorways, the sight be- came too much even for police and fire
 men. hardened as they are to such scenes, to endure The bodies were in such an inextricable mass and so tightly were they jammed between the sides of the doors and the walls that IL was tmpoS- sible to life them one by one and carry them out. The only possible thing to do
 was to seize limb or some other portion
 of the body and pull with main strength.
 Men worked at the task with tears run ming down their cheeks and the sobs of the rescuers could be heard even in tine
 hall below, where this awful scene was
 being enacted. A number of men were | compelled to abandon their task and give
 it over to others whose nerves had not as yet been shaken by the awful experi- ence.
 BODIES TRABPLED
 BEYOND RECOGNITION.
 As one by one the bodies were dragged
 out of the water-soaked. blackened mass
 of corpses the spectacle became more and
 more heartreTding. There were women
 whose clothing was torn completely from
 their bodies above the waist, whose bos-
 oms had been trampied into a pulp and 1 whose faces were marred beyond all pow
 CT of Identification.
 Bodies lay in the first and second bal
 comics in great numbers. In some places
 they were piled up in the aisles three