Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-01-01
CHICAGO IN GLOOM
The Appalling Calamity at the
 Troquois Kills All Joy.
CiTY MOURNS FOR DEAD AND DYING


 onaxt All New Year Celebration Meets With Hearty Approval.
 Fire Inquiry Started.
 CHICAGO. Jan. 1.--For the first time since Chicago has possessed bells to peal. whistles to shrfek and horns to blow the old year was allowed silently to take its place in history and the new year permitted to come with no evidence of joy a.t it's birth.
 In an official proclamation issued by Mayor Carter Fl. Harrison he made the suggestion that the usual New Years eve celebration be for this time omit ted. The idea found ready response in the hearts of the people, and the mayors words in fact only gave ut terance to the unexpressed thoughts that had filled them all.
 The appalling calamity at the Iro- uuois theater has cast Chicago into the deepest grief and gloom and for the time being at least seems to have chilled and deadened all the ordinary ambitions of life. Business was per formed with the, sole view to actual necessity, and even that much was car ried out in a perfunctory manner.
 Ordinarily on New Years eve. the streets of the city are filled with merry n akers, but the only throngs to be found were those around the morgues. Ordinarily numbers of fashionable res taurants in the heart of the city are 6lIed with light hearted revelers, who toast the year that passes and hail the year that comes. These places are comparatively deserted and some of = { !E..ssszn closed entirely, with doors ioeks ed and curtains drawn. Usually among these gay people are found many mem- bers of the theatrical profession. Not B single one of them is in evidence.
 For the second time in her life the city of Chicago has been stricken to the heart. Not only have many of her sons and daughters met death in a variety of horrible and torturing forms, but the blow has fallen almost as heav fly upon the strangers within her gates. There is hardly a village or town with h a radius of 100 miles of Chicago 5 whose people are not directly or indi- rectly interested in the piles of dead or in the injured which fill the hos pitals or in the fate of those who seem to have passed from human knowledge In the fact that 1t is. believed they were in the i'll fated structure and of whom no word has since been heard.
 The list of dead continues as it was given in the neighborhood of 56O. 1t Is generally accepted at this time that the most accurate estimate is 564.
 This number will be increased some what, as there are people in the hos pitals who cannot survive for any length of time. It is believed, how ever, that the total number of dead will not in any event exceed 575 In cluding the missing, it is estimated that the total number of casualties at the present time is approximately 1000. There are among the missing names of many who are at their homes and of some who were not at the theater at all In the first excitement following the calamity these people were report ed by their relatives as among the missing and numbers of them have since returned to their homes, and no report of this fact has been made to police headquarters. Their names, however, still swell the list of the miss ing When the names of the dead who ara still to be identified have been sub- tracted from the list of the missing it Is probable that the extent of the ca lasrrophe will be fully revealed
 There was animated discussion yes terday among 1remen, employees of the theater and architects as to the cause of the fire Accounts differed as widely in the morning as they varied last night The theatrical people are practically a unit in declaring that the fire started with an explosion, and in this they are fatly contradicted by scores of people in the audience who declare that they saw the fire creep ing along the edge of the curtain for several minutes before the explosion { took place. These statements are sub of people who left their seats after seeing the blaze and were well on their way to the street when oyertaken by the panic stricken crowd
 The cause of the tanning of the Rsbestus curtain, considered the chief cause of the disaster, has been ex- plained by an inspector for the under writers who made tour of the house and found that the wire on which the queen of the aerial ballet flew out over the audience in the second act held the asbestus curtain in place and prevented it from being lowered It was shown by the inspector that the wire on which the most spectacular feature of the 1phow was made practically caused the
 oIocaust
 Twelve members of the city council
 7snsetsd the thsatsg and after doinS