The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-07

.heater chairs, their poor. impOtent
hands burned into one conmingled Gin
der with the sides of the seats they had
grasped when the panic came.
Others who had managed by the
strength of terror to get into the aisles
found their awful ending in the min
gled smoke and fire and tearing of
limbs in the open space back of the
| seats. Dozens of others. swept, car
ried, dragged or thrown out to the
stairways and even down to the land
ings in actual sight of the daylight
| that streamed through the big front
doors, in sight of throngs outside, died
| in great masses seven and eight feet
deep. their limbs mingled fearfully to-
gether, their clothing burnt off and
their faces caught in their last agonies,
all turned toward the doors they could
| not reach.
FEW ESCAPED BY THE WINDOWS.
From windows at the north and west
ends of the building they streamed.
blinded by smoke and crazed beyond
any possibility of helping themselves
further or taking advantage of the aid
extended to them from the upper floors
of the buildings facing the theater.
1dQQSIS, TopSS, pO1cSs every
thing that could possibly serve to as
sist these poor creatures in their bat
tie for life, were rugged and turned in
to bridges, but very few got across
alive. These bridges were utilized
few minutes after the first alarm to
drag charred bodies across, and over
them passed rapidly one blaekened
corpse after another till every building
on the north and west end was filled
with them.
Barely five minutes after the first
alarm was turned in, the firemen were
struggling into the theater, making
their way in some miraculous manner
through the maddened mob that was
pouring out of the auditorium and
doing what little they could not only
to check the fire, which was fast turn
ing the whole interior shell into a caul-
dron, but to rescue the frantic hun
dreds in the upper balconies by a lad
der stretched from the main floor. A
few-thirty at most--were rescued in
this way, and then the firemen, after
controlling the flames, abandoned their
lengths of hose to go with the fast
gathering police to the scenes OF death
on the upper stairways and in the bal
cony seats.
STRONG MEN WEEP AT THE
HORROR.
Here was no more struggling, no
more frantic haste. Hundreds with
homes in every part of the city stiIl
showing at their windows Christmas
wreaths, still filled with decorations
OF the holiday season, lay beyond all |
thought of worldly things in the silent |
heaps of death There were no men,
even among those most accustomed |
to scenes of destruction and mortality,
who could approach these fearful still
ed masses calmly. Time and again |
they started toward the upper stair |
ways, caught one another by the arms, |
and cried like little children, stunned |
by the horror of it all.
And outside the main entrance to the |
building passers-by. attracted by the |
presence of the fire engines. had no |
knowledge of the fearful disaster in |
side. Tens of thousands passed and |
within a block without know |
ing about it. Even police officers In |
the roadway were asking one another |
If there had been any accidents, IL any |
among the audience had been badly |
hurt. But when from inside began I