Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-10
Screams End Happy Laugh
ter as Fear-Mad Young
sters Are Crushed in Stam-
pede for Door-35 Injured.
PARENTS JAM MORGUE
TO FIND LITTLE VICTIMS

Mass as Trapped Boys and Girls
Fight for Safety-Firemen Cut
Hole in Wall to Get Bodies.
BY the Associated Press.
MONTREAL, January 10.-Vic-
Tins of a movie disaster more tragic
than ever fickered on the silver
screen, II children lay dead today,
crushed or suffocated by a fire stan-
pede Sunday i'll the Laurier Palace,
theater in Montrears east end.
| This morning 68 of the little VIC
TINS had been identified at the city
morgue, while s others still awaited
recognition. Autopsies established
that 90 of the children died from
| aSphyxiation, IL were crushed and
| 5 lost their lives from a combination
OF asphyxiation and burns.
| Thirty-five children injured in the
crush were reported at the city hos
| pitfalls to be recovering and not to be-
! in any further danger
! Mayor Martin has issued a message
| of coincidence to the bereaved parents
| OF the victims and the Montreal The
| ater Managers Association has OPEN
! ed subscriptions for a relief fund of
! at least $4,000.
! The tragedy was caused by fear, as
the fire which started the rush for the
| exits was comparatively trivial.
Theater Well Filled.
| The Laurier Palace is at No. 1888
| st. Catherine street east. 1t is a two
story building, with a stone and brick
front, and has been in operation sew
eral years. The seating capacity is
about 1,100, and it was well filled YES
terday. with the usual large number
OF children in the audience. Adults
also attended.
The place has four exits, two at the
front, into which the stairs from the
/ balcony lead, and two at the side.
opening into a lane which leads to a
| side street
! Sundays performance, featuring a
comedy film, Get EN- Young"-dead-
| ly irony in the light of the disaster
that was to follow-was barely under
way when there was flicker of flame
and belch of smoke from the proiec-
ton room beneath the balcony.
Some one saw it-accounts differ as
| to whether it was a small boy or an
usher-and the dread cry of "Fire''
was raised. BedIam ensued. The
crowd. drawn from the surrounding
French-Canadian and foreign district.
| f1ed for the exits. Those on the
ground floor seem to have reached the
open without great difficulty.
Stampede for Stairways.
Those in the balcony, terrified by
the pillows of smoke and the heat of
the flames below, ran for the two
stalrways, down which they struggled,
swaying and shouting. An usher sue.
ceeded in restoring some order to
those stampeding down the west side
stairs, but on the east terrible panic
developed, and it was here that the
worst of the tragedy occurred.
The tide of children and adults flow
ing to the street level was suddenly
halted. Some one had fallen. With
panic redoubled, those behind, feeling
the breath of the fire upon them.
Surged downward and the stairway
became near-sold mass of groaning,
, shriel1ing humanity.
Children were borne under foot to
be trampled. Others were caught and
crushed by the pressure of the sur
rounding adults. Still others, SINH
larly pinioned, were suffocated. Those
in the rear were caught by the flames.
F'iremen, arriving from the st.
Catherine street east station, found
the stairway ineXtricably jammed,
with the lOwermost part of the mass
only few steps from the main floor.
Attempts to relieve the pressure by
pulling at individual members of the
tangle were unavailing. Firemen tied
! a rope about the body of one child in
the hope that it was the key-log of the
jam, but were unable to bulge it.
Smash Hole i'm Wall.
Then, as the quickest way through.
they smashed hole in the street wall
and formed a human chain, passing
the victims through the opening.
In the rear of the mass an usher,
w. w. Pare, fought heroically, but
futively, in the binding smoke and
intense heat to save some of the
pinioned children. He dragged nine
little victims to a window over the
entrance canopy and thrust them out
in the hope that some were alive.
None survived. Almost overcome by
the smoke himself. he crawled on to
the canopy and was taken to the
street by firemen.
Meanwhile holes had been chopped
through the stairs and under the jam
of bodies. AS the victims were taken
out by the firemen and volunteers
they were removed to nearby stores
or dwellings to protect them from the
biting cold. Ambulance surgeons fit
ted from one to another, rendering
were rushed off in ambulances. Fif-
teen died in one hospital alone.
The fire was soon extinguished, but
for hours afterward the ambulances
raced between the temporary hos
pitfalls and the general institutions or
bore their pitiful burdens to the city
morgue.
Parents Rush to Morgue.
Moving scenes were enacted at all
these places, but particularly touch
ing were those at the morgue, where,
through the afternoon and night,
fathers and mothers and elder broth
ers and sisters appeared, passing
along the rows of bodies searching fol
their loved ones.
From the cOroner'S court, above the
morgue, those who had been deprived
of hope went to the office of the cor
oner to receive the fatal blue slip al
lowing them TO remove the bodies Of
their dead.
Almost all Of the children identified
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