Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1904-01-07

hospital. The long tables offered ad.
mirable means of service, and upon
them the bleeding, burned, and moan.
ing injured we're laid.
Within a block are a dozen great
buildings occupied almost exclusively
by doctors, and in a remarkably short
time a great host of physicians came
to give voluntary service to those in
distress. They saved the lives of
scores Of women and children. fren-
zied with pain, who would have died
In the street or under the kindly shell,
ter of the neighboring buildings.
Rush from Orchestra Seats.
The great majority of those who
occupied orchestra seats had escaped
with their lives, though scores were
badly hurt in the rush. Some were
knocked down, and, with broken limbs,
we're unable to rise. They had been
left to die with a number of women
who tainted from fright. With these
bodies were found the corpses of those
who had leaped from the balcony and
gallery.
In the exits of the balcony and gal
leries the greatest loss of life oc-
Cured. When the firemen went to re-
move the bodies they found 100 or
more piled in indescribable mass in
each place. The clothes were torn
completely away from some Of the
bodies. Here and there a jeweled hand
protruded from the pile. All the faces
were distorted with the death agonies.
Moan from Heap Of Dead.
From beneath this mangled mass of
humanity there suddenly came the
moan of a woman. 1t was a cry Of
anguish, not of pain. The cry, faint
though 1t was, pierced to the very
soul, sounding above the yells of the
firemen, the means of agony from
within the smoke-filled auditorium,
and the shrieks of grief maddened
fathers and mothers. sisters and broth.
ers in the street without.
Trembling hands plunged their way
into the tangle of human forms, and
with a mighty effort pulled to the sur
face the woman-could such a thing
be a human being?-from whose lips
had come the cry. The blackened lips
parted. and a fireman bent over her
to catch the words.
Mother Love Is Uppermost.
my child, my poor little boy!
Where is he? Oh, do bring him to
me-"
There in that awful hour, her body
bruised beyond recognition in the mad
fight for life that followed the first
flash of fame across the stage-there
was mother love uppermost. Again
the trembling lips parted.
"Is he safe? Tell me he is safe and
can die"
HE is safe" the fireman muttered,
and all knew his reply was best,
She died, and her body was lifted
tenderly with those of the hundred
others in that one spot.
The calamity was so overwhelming
that the firemen and the policemen
who were the first to reach the upper
part of the house could not realize its
astounding extent. They began by
dragging body or two from the terri.
BILE piles at the head Of the stairways,
as II they did not know the piles were
made of human bodies.
Gradually the full significance of the
catastrophe dawned upon them. All
the lights of the theater had been ex.
tinguished. The lanterns OF the fire
men cast only dim glow over the
piles of dead. From the bodies arose
small curls of steam. The flremen had
drenched the piles before they knew
they were made up of human corpses
Through the tiers of dead and dying
in the building all about men and
women searched with frenzied faces
Now and again searcher would find
one for whom he looked. One coult
but turn the face from such scenes. 3,