Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-01-04

m6Dls Oh tue UT6msD, WHO lOuuo buO
bodies of numbers of persons sitting
in their seats. their faces directed
toward the sage as if the perform
ance was still going on. IL was the
opinion of the firemen that these
people had been suffocated at once
by the flow of gas and fire. AS near
as can be estimated at the present
time about 1900 people were in the
theater. Outside of the people
burned and suffocated by gas, it was
in the two doorways 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 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 center of the doorway
reached to within two feet of the top
of the passageway. All of the
corpses at this point were women and
children. The fight for life which
must have taken place at these two
points is something that is simply
beyond human power to adequately
describe. Only faint idea of it's
horror could be derived from the
aspect of the bodies as they lay.
Women on top of these masses of
dead had been overtaken by death as
they were crawling on their hands
and knees over the bodies of those
who had died before. Others lay
with arms stretched out in the direc-
ton toward which lay life and safety,
holding in their hands fragments of
garments evidently torn from others
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 of
dead in these doorways the sight be-
came too much even for the police
and firemen, hardened as they are to
such scenes. The bodies were in such
an nextricable mass and SO tightly
were they jammed between the sides
of the door and the walls that it was
impossible to lift them up one by one
and carry them out. Men worked at
the task with tears running down
their cheeks and the sobs of the res
cuers could be heard even in the hall
below where this awful scene was
being enacted. A number of the
men were compelled to abandon their
task and give it over to those whose
nerves had not as yet been shaken.
AS one by one the bodies were
dragged out of the watersoaked
blackened mass of corpses the specta
Gle became more and more beart-
rending. Bodies lay in the first and
second balconies in great numbers.
In some places they were piled up in
the aisles three and four deep, where
one had fallen and others tripped
over the PROSTATE forms where they
lay, evidently suffocated by the gas.
In the aisles nearest to the doors the
scenes were narrowing in the ex
treme. Bodies lay in every con-
ceivable attitude half naked, the look
on their faces revealing some of the
agony which must have preceded
their death. There were scores of
people whose faces had been literally
trampled completely off by the heels
of those who rushed over them.
The theater had been constructed but
a short time and all it's equipment was
not vet in place. This was unfortu-
nately the case with a fire escape in
the rear of the building. The small
iron balconies to which the iron
ladders were to be attached were up,
but the ladders had not yet been con-
structed. When the panic was at its
height great number of women ran to
these fire escapes, only to find as they
emerged from the doorway upon tn I'd
little iron platform that they were ;lg
70 IN faa+ from, tho oropnd fro harl
hind and no method of escape 'ea'
front. Those who reached the pl"aS
form first endeavored to hold I'll ram
footing and to keep back the or ui7'
4ho+ nressed pnon tbem fron, sleis
rear. The effort was utterly us lon
ord in fev momarts tho iron j putt
were jammed with crowds of w wen
who screamed, fought and tt 'h
each other like maniacs. This'o pau
but brief time and the rus 10 noo'
the interior of the building be so oey
violent that MANY Of there BODY
crowded off and fell to the1lte Two
pavement below. Others-peo oo'ii
from the platform, fractr legs ""s
arms, and two were pic'P aO
this point with fractured s. nav wv
been killed instantly.
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PAINT ADVICE him.
Paint often epouCh ma OSSb you ond