The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1906-01-23
EIGHTEEN KILLED
in PHILADELPHIA
Fire Causes Stampede in That City
Which Results in Eighteen Deaths
and Fifty Others Injured.
LANDING COVERED THREE FEET DEEP

Philadelphia, Jan. 23.-Eighteen ne
a stampede following the discovery of
a fire in st. Paul's Baptist church.
Many of the injured will die. ta
An examination of the dead showed
that most of them had been suffo-
Gated or had died from internal in
juries.
When the fire was discovered the
organist continued to play, increasing
the volume of his instrument to thun-
derous tones, but the refrain could not
be heard, drowned out in the medley
of shouts and screams from the panic
stricken negroes.
Pastor Johnson strove to quiet his
people; he pleaded and prayed, but
the audience turned it's back and fed
for the doors.
Eight hundred were in the audi
torium of the church on the second
floor when the fire started. The pastor
had just concluded his sermon and
was putting on his baptismal robe
preparatory to baptising two converts
when he saw smoke issue from a small
crevice along the wall in front of the
altar. A revival was in progress in
the church and the negroes were in
state OF great excitement, which may
have had something to do with the
terrible panic which followed
Others in the congregation saw the
smoke almost as soon as the preacher
and some needless one cried Fire ;"
Instantly the cry swept through the
audience.
The stampede began with the first
cry. There were no flames visible, no
threatening glare, just tiny thread OF
smoke trickling through the wainscot-
ing, but it had driven 800 men and
women into a blind, unreasoning panic.
Mad Rush Down Narrow Stairs.
The glass doors at the rear of the
room were swept aside and shattered
in the rush. Men and women began to
pile pellmell down the narrow, wind
ing stairs. The first few got out in
safety Then some stumbled and fell
and the sacrifice began.
In three seconds after the stampede
began there was tangled mass, most
ly women, who were the weakest. ly-
ing in Writhing mass at the foot of
the stairs, trampled upon and crushed.
Men and women no longer ran down
the stairs; they fell
In the terrible crush few of the wo-
men or children had any chance for
life. Of the ten victims taken to the
children's hospital seven were women,
two were small children and the other
was an old man.
The pastor OF the church, man of
powerful physique and strong voice,
continued to appeal to the crowd in
the rear to stop their rush, but none
would heed. Over the PROSTATE forms
the crowd went, crushing the life out
of those who We're unable to eXtricate
themselves.
When those who came down the
front stairs had left the building a ter
r1ble sight presented itself to the res
cuers. The first floor and the stair
way to the bend were covered three
deep with the dead and dying On the
street hundreds were shrieking for
help and looking for their missing
loved ones.
The fire was most trif1ing affair.
A defective 1ue started a small fire in
the chimney, which caused smoke to
issue through the crevices in the sec
ond floor. Whether the flames were
extinguished or burned themselves out
is not known, but there was no fire in
the building when the fremen set to
work.