The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1913-12-26
CAL UMET DROPS
xMASFEST|vITIES
Seventy.two We're Killed in Fire
Panic at Celebration.
STAMPEDED BY FALSE CRY.
The Exit Stairways Were choked With
Dead, Over Whom Others TrampIed

Oeau, OVer Wnon OtheTS iTdfHPiSu
Way to Safety.
Calumet, Mich, Dec. 26.-Becauslnf
the appalling loss of life in the panic
following a false cry of "Ffre!" at a
Christmas celebration here on Wed,
nesday night, nearly all the Christmas
trees in the city have been disman-
tied out Of respect to the childless
homes.
The citizens are responding gener-
ous1y to the appeals for financial aid
for the families of the stricken. 1t
developed that only few of the fami-
lies which have suffered bereavement
are able to bury their dead. Mr.. Moy-
er. president of the Western Feds1
ton of Miners, asserted that the
ganization will defray the expen
Of the funerals.
Twenty-one girls, twenty-five WON
twenty-one boys and five men-a
tai of seventy-two persons-is the q
rected list of the dead.
The celebration was held for
children of the striking copper mine
Parties bent on lynching are searchi
the city from end to end for the man
who raised the fire cry. A Mrs. Caesar,
who seized him as he shouted Nthe ia
tai word, has given an excellent de-
scription of the man.
The city Is in a state bordering on
anarchy over. the. appalling disasteq
The miners, embittered by their lol1
struggle and penniless condition as
result, are desperate, especially thos
who lost relatives in the panic.
The authorities are mystified .ov
the action of the stranger IN raisi
the cry of fire. There was not
gestion of fire in or near the build
TIE police b MIN to De 8 ma z
man, or else to have been too drun4
to realize what he was doing. I
The exercises of the happiest even
ing the mining town has known for
months were in full swing, and hun
dreds of miners and their wives were
looking on as the children pressed
eagerly toward the stage to receive
Christmas presents. At that instant
an unidentified man ran up the stairs
and cried "Fire!'" in at the open door
way.
Immediately there was rush for
the sta1rways, men, women and chill
dren swarming down the steps and
piling up half way down and at the
bottom. Little children who could not
go fast enough to get out of the. way
of those coming behind were crushed
and smothered beneath the weight pill
ing down upon them. The majority
were smothered to death.
The outside door was opened by
passersby, but the children and wo-
men were so solidly packed at the
bottom of the stairs and halfway to
the top of the single fight that they
could not be pulled out.
In the meantime others within the
building poured over the bodies of the
crushed and lifeless at the bottom of
the stairs, using them as roadway
to escape from the building. So sol
idly were the bodies at the bottom Of
the stairs packed that 1t was neces-
sary for the firemen and deputy sher-
IFS to go in the second-story windows
with ladders and come down the
stairs and pull the children back off
the pile at the bottom.
The stairway and other avenues o.
egress we're blocked so effectually thai
those still inside could not get out and
those without could not get in to aid
the panic-stricken crowd in the hall.
It was some time before the panic
subsidized. The alarm was spread out.
side the hall by a few persons whn
had been near the door and had es
capped unhurt. A crowd soon assembled
and the work of clearing the hall was
begun.
The principal exit was narrow
stairway at the back of the hall, and
when this had been cleared of the
bodies that filed it nearly to the toI,
and quick accounting had been made
it was found that seventy-two corpses
had been piled up, beside the building.