Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1904-01-07
HOLIDAY MATINEE TURNED IN FEW
MINUTES TO FEARFUL TRAGEDY
Rush Feet-P in and
Await Awfu Police
Work Found in

hospital. The long tables offered ad.
mirable means of service, and upon
them the bleeding, burned, and moan.
ing injured were laid.
Within a block are a dozen great
buildings occupied almost exclusively
by doctors, and in 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,
were 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
I 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
moro piled in indescribable mass in
each place The clothes were torn
/ completely away from some of the
bodies. Here and there jeweled hand
| protruded from the pile. All the faces
were distorted with the death agonies
Mean from Heap of Dead.
From beneath this mangled mass OF
humanity there suddenly came the
moan of a woman. 1t was cry OF
anguish, not of pain. The cry, faint
though it 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, anC
with mighty effort pulled to the sur
face the woman-cc1id such a Ihiht
|
had come the cry. The blackened lips
parted and a fireman bent over hel
TO catch the words.
my child, my poor little lIoy,
Where is he? oh, do bring him tc
me-"
There in that awful hour, her body
bruised beyond recognition in the mac
fight for life that followed the frs
fash of flame across the stage-thert
was mother love uppermost Agar
the trembling lips parted.
rs he safe? Tell me he is safe ant
can die"
HE is safe" the fireman muttered
and all knew his reply was best.
She died, and her body was liteC
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 rot realize Us
astounding extent. They began by
dragging a body or two from the terri
bic piles at the head OF the stairways
as If they did not know the piles were
made of human bodies
Gradually the full significance of the
catastrophe dawned upon them. AL
the lights OF the theater had been ex
tinguished The lanterns of the fire
men cast only a dim glow over the
piles Of dead. From the bodies arose
small curls Of steam. The firemen hat
drenchod 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 a searcher would find
ore for whom he looked. One could
but turn the face from such scenes.