Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-01-02

bpSCl&CuldT IGdCuEGS OIL the snow de-
pended was practically the cause of
the holocaust.
Chicago, Dec. 31.-The latest esti-
mates the dead as the result Of yes
terdAy's calamity In the Iroquois the
atretiB 564.
~ tits stated at the hospitals and no
&e1Slto which the injured were removed
that there are 157 injured people at
thesH places, probably one-third of
whom cannot live. The numebr of
missing Is placed at 314, but it is ex-
pected many Of these will be accounted
for. Daylight found the morgues the
ow-haunted centers Of many
searShers.
Search for Relatives,
There were husbands searching for
wives. wives for husbands, frenzied
parents for children, so many of whom
had lost their lives, and in some in
stances wild-eyed children, still dazed
from the horror Of their experience,
CROPPED distressedly about in search of
father or mother.
A Night Of Horror.
All night crowds came and went
around the morgues where the bodies
of the victims of the disaster lay.
There were heads of families, broth
erss sisters. and m en- and women look.
Ing Cor those from outside cities, who
hadsbeen their guests. For hours they
passed up and down before the long
rows OF dead, searching for the faces of
their missing friends or relatives.
Almost twenty-four hours since the
awful fire in the Iroquois theater, Chi
Gags shas only begun to recover from
5he. horrors Of the catastrQghe. As
the details become known, the people
realize more and more the awful mag
nitude, Of the harvest Of death.
Homes that yesterday were happy, are
now the abode Of death. Every hour
grtef.stricken men and women, and
even little children. their faces. made
old by their awful experiences, iden-
tfy some of the charred bodies as
friends or relatives.
The scene at the fire is totally be.
yond description. The catastrophe de-
hes, with its very magnitude, the con-
certion Of the average mind. The loss
Of life is more than twice as great as
the fatality resulting from the great
Chicago fire Of 1871, when only ESQ peo-
pie died, though the fire ragged for days
and the entire business portion Of the
city was swept by the flames.
This frightful thing was over before
I the city knew that it had happened:
the news in its wild spread left pa
.ralysis behind.
"Bluebeard was being performed in
! the theater. An audience of not only
OF unusual size. but Of unusual compo-
s1tlon was listening to it. It was the
matinee audience of the mid-holiday
Geason.-
Children and Women the Victims.
Only once in a year could such an
audience have gathered; only once in
all the twelve-month could have so
many children have been collected
within the walls Of the theater.
And on this one occasion the sac
rifice to flame was demanded. There
were men in the audience; there were
men in the galleries, from which the
greatest tribute Of death was demand
ed, but they were few in proportion
to the children. There were women,
too. Some of them died with their
arms around their children. Probably
the proportion of men in the theater
might have been one to ten women and
children; OF women one to four chill
dren OF young people.
Deaths Harvest in the Galleries.
There were 1000 persons or there
ab0uts in the theater. OF that number
LAO had seats. The rest were massed
In the rear of the seats on the main
floor and the first balcony.
In the galleries, even the rear seats
Of the second gallery, were seated per-
sons who ordinarily would not have
been content with anything less than
parquet seats. They were mothers.
aunts, and elder sisters taking the
children for an outing which fitted only
to this one afternoon; young fellows
from college treating their visiting
chums to the theater; school girls out
with their young friends for the same
kind of a lark. A number of parties
consisted of trios of girls under 15
years Of age.
Such was the human material pro-
vided on one side of the curtain.
On the other were 300 members Of
the extravaganza company. They
were dressed in fimsy garments, trail
ing with gauze, wells of death once the
breath of fire swept over them
Fire Curtain DeIusion.
Between audience and performers
was the curtain line, down which an
asbestos fire curtain should have fall
len a second after the alarm was Civ
en-, confirming the fire to the stage.
The curtain never fell.
The fire leaped from the stage as IL
from a furnace door. The draft from
the opened stage exits behind drove
it across the auditorium and upward to
the galleries Over carpet of the
dead it forced its own way through the