The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-02-28


and Chairs slid Downward as II Into
Funnci-Pastor, who Had Just
Called. Too Late, to Policeman 10
Clear the Aisies, Is Among the Injured
The Church Is the Old Fleet street
Never Renewed inspectors Examined
IL Last August and Thought IL Safe.
Just az the funeral service OF negro
musician was beginning last night in the
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
in Fleet street, near Myrtle avenue, Brook
Ign, the floor of the chapel on the second
floor. crowded with mourners, gave way
OF the four hundred or moro persons who
were hurled downward with tremendous
force and damned together on the floor or
the Sunday school room below, eleven were
killed and at least forty were injured.
Ten seconds after the stringed orchestra
had begun TO play the Dead March in
Saul" and the pallbearers from the COL
ored lodge of Elks had started with the
body OF the dead musician up the stair
way the floor of this Sunday school room,
for Il space of 40 feet square. was piled
with twisted bodies. Until the hole was
filed level with the second tloor the people
in the chapel above helpless 20 save them
selves. were forced down ward.
Those who fell first died quiclly-Were
dead almost as soon as they struck the floor
Of the Sunday school room. literally fiat
tened by the weight Of the bodies that piled
on them. Others were killed by crushing.
blows OF the breaking fosr beams. Almost
every bone in the bodies Of one or two
OF these was broken.
The panic that followed the first sagginR
OF the floor was responsible largely for the
great number who were more or less hurt.
Men and women crowded into the ohepel on
the second door so tightly that tho aiales
were full and the space back of the pews
jammed, went crazy with fright.
They grabbed at window sills in n des-
perate effort TO save themselves from slid
ing into the funnel They caught at eaoh
other tried to climb over one another's
bodies and threw themselves out OF the
window. Their screams and prayers wers
heard for many blocks around and echoed
by the hundreds who had been standing
in the street outside the church, anxious
TO get in, but unable to find a seat or an
inch Of standing room.
policeman GOT OFT UNHuRT.
A policeman McCreery Of the Adams
street station, who had been in the chapel,
got out by the narrowest squeeze imaR gin
able fought his way out somehow, just
how he couldn't tell called the police Of
his station, rang a fire alarm and sum
moned ambulances from every hospital
in Brooklyn. The responses, fortunately.
were immediate, or the loss of life would
have been hea yier, for the terror stricken
colored people. out OF their senses from
the horror and fright OF the thing. we're
clawing and tearing their way out of the
pyramid of bodies, striking at each other
in the madness OF self-protectiOn, grinding
little children under foot, snatching women's
dresses from their bodies. Possessed with
the one idea of getting out Of the place.
no matter how.
This was the situation the police found
when Capt Gallagher coming on the run
with fifty men from the Adams street sta
ton and nearby posts, drove into the crowd
that jammed the street and forced their
way into the Sunday school room.
First Of all they forced shut the front
doors OF the church to keep back the mob
OF wailing friends and relatives, jamming
the doors close and putting their backs
against them. Then they set TO work 10
untange the bodies heaped up in the rear
Of the Sunday school room in pile with
broken beams, bent andtwisted iron pillars.
and Jagged pieces OF flooring. 1t took half
an hour to DO this, and the caring for the
living was much harder than removing
the dead
LOOKED LIKE FIFTY DEAD.
The appearance Of tho room was so
frightiul TO Gala CHER and his men at FIRST
glance that they thought fifty or more had
been killed. At least fifty were CONSOLES
on the floor. where they had been pounded
by the falling OF the bodies from above.
After a while il was seen that eleven were
stone dead and perhaps forty unable TO
walk
The police formed a double line through
which the bodies were carried 10 old Cicero
Henry's barber shop at Fleet street The
old man got his chairs and tables out Of the
way, and the dead were stretched on the
floor to await the undertakers. The badly
hurt were made rs comfortable as possible
IN the Sunday school room. where they fell.
till the aInbulances arrived. Some had
broken arms or legs. others had been deeply
cut by Jagged ends of beams. a few had
their chests crushed. There was hardly
an injury that couldn't be found in the
lines of the bruised and broken that the
police and hremen laid ont along the walls.
Every hospital in Brooklyn sent am
balances. The injured were taken to the
Cumberland street, the brooklyn. the Long
Island College. the Eastern District, tho
Williamsburg and Others But before the
police got there dozens OF the slightly hurt
had fed to their homes or 20 drug stores
10 have cuts and bruises bandaged. For
hours Il was impossible to determine just
how many had been hurt.
SOME IMAGINED HURTS.
An odd feature Of the situation was that
dozens who had got safely out we're so
happy over their escape and so proudN
via y Yot ARE SICK USE
Ir.-. :. Iur WING aua lrAnn juice.