The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-28
TWENTY-SIX DEAD RESULT OF PANIC
 IN PICTURE SHOW Wild Flight of Ignorant Miner Precipitates a
 Rush for Door
MANAGER LED SOME
 OUT REAR ENTRANCE
Just Half of the Number Killed Were Children--Many Pathetic Inci- dents Occurred-Coroner
 Will Investigate

Canonsburg, Pa, August 27.-Twen- ty-six dead from suffocation; 20 seri- ously injured 30 suffering rom minor hurts.
 That is the amount of human toll ex- acted by an inexcusable panic at a moving picture show in the Canons- burg opera house Saturday night. The moving picture machine develop ed slight defect. It sputtered bit. A small boy shouted fire at the same time starting for the narrow exit.
 Bolus Dubrowski. foreign miner. d giant in proportions, jumped from his seat and ran wildly for the same exit. In a moment there was a fighting, struggling mass after him. At the head of a narrow stairway which led to the street the foreigner tripped. As he rolled down the stairs he swept others from their feet who were await ing their turn to enter the theater and soon there was an indescribable pile or human beings at the foot of the steps battling like madmen.
 Dubrowski's wild flight through the theater and his subsequent stumble uOWH tilt iiito tiicSO t'5 building was the beginning of the death jam at the foot of the stairs. The bodies clogged the doorway. Men walked over them and fought for posi- tions of safety until overwhelmed by the height of the moving mass be- hind, they, too, were crushed down to death.
 When the doorway had been filled up, still other persons walked over the bodies of those who had gone down and breaking the glass transom over the door. crawled through and dropped into the street.
 It was all ended in few minutes. Volunteers, firemen, several policemen and a few level headed citizens un- tangled the human mass. The unhurt and those slightly injured were pulled from the top of the pile. As they gained the street they ran screaming away Next come the more seriously hurt and these were sent home or taken to nearby houses while a few were rushed unconscious to hospitals. Then the rescuers came to the silent forms of those who had reached the fatal stairway first. One after another the victims, many of them women and small children, were carried to the sidewalk All had been suffocated.
 Manager Ferguson endeavored to stop the panic. Accompanied by his wife he started for the stairs, but seeing there was no escape he went to the stage. call ing loudly to the frightened people to follow, he led the way to the rears and fully 300 escaped in this way.
 Of the 26 dead 13 were children, seven of them pupils in the public schools. "o- day it was decided by the school authori- ties to postpone for week the opening of the schools.
 Arthur McPeake was passing the build ing when the bodies began to pile up at the door. The young man rushed to the rescue and was in the act of dragging a body from the pile when man came shooting down the stairs. He struck Me Peake on the back and the young mans neck was broken.
 Sydney Rittigsr was at the performance with his fiancee, Miss Lulu Fisher. Before entering the building they had stopped at a jewery store nearby and Rittlger had bought the ring that was to have been used at their wedding. Both were killed. |
 Wilr,er Lane, an employe of the Can onsburg pottery, and member of the volunteer fire company. hastened to an- swer the alarm, and was working at the pile of bodies at the entrance, when he came upon the lifeless forms of his two children lying beside his unconscious wife. Samuel Lane of Morgansea, not knowing that his sons family were at the theatre, had entered the building short time before the alarm was given. He rushed toward the stairs and was making his way down when he saw a child almost under his feet. As he stopped to pick her up he recognized his grand daughter but at that moment he was caught in the mighty whirl and she was swept out of his reach and killed. He was seriously hurt.
 Coroner James T. Hefferan has begun a rigid investigation. He arrived at the scene early today and selected jury.
 It developed during the day there was no flash from the operating room of the theatre nor was there the slightest sign of fire. Manager Ferguson of the opera house explained that when the film broke a bright light was thrown on the screen. The frightened boy imagined it was fire and unconsciousy shouted out the death- knell of more than score of persons.