Year: 1877

HOasc.


| The description given by persons who


were in the gallery of the Brooklyn thea


ter at the time of the disaster is


heartrending and horrible. Alfred


A, Jones gives the following account OF
the scehe | was seated next to the front
row, but, seeing tina; something was
wrong on the stage | moved up to the
entrance of the tier. While my back
was turned shrieks were heard, and the
mass of people in the gallery arose in
wild confusion. | cannot describe the
scene as IL was. They were climbing
over seats, gripping each other by the
clothes, and struggling frantically to get
ahead OF one another, saw one man
smash fellow in the face who would not
yield to him in the passage, and big,
powerful woman tore her way through
and came toward me with scarcely any
clothes on her back, and with blood
streaming from her noStrils. Two odecent-
looking boys got together in the front
row, and saw them clambering over
the seats and squeezing their bodies
through the crowd, One OF them was
thrown down, and the other turned and
called him wildly by name. got down
among the first that escaped, and didn't
wait to see what happened.


A tall, stout man, who said he was a
truckman, gave very vivid description
OF the scene "When the uproar began"
he said, 81 was seated in the aisle, about
the middle of the gallery, and three or
four seats from the front. | never saw
anything like it. All the people in the
gallery seemed to be crowding one on top
OF the other. There were men there
who seemed perfectly frantic. The yells
and shrieks | shall never forget to my
dying day. My wife is down stairs ,
one man cried out, 'let me get her out ?


We're all safe if you'll only be ordcryp
another cried. At The same time, how
ever he was making the most strenuous
exertions to get through the throng.
Iheweakest went down one after another.
and the strongest rushed recklessy over
them. The cries that ascendcd amid the
uproar were heartrending.


90 My God have mercy on me, one
voice repeated several times. One man
managed to crawl from heap of pros
trate bodies, but the struggling throng
rushed against him, and he spun round
towards me and fell almost at my feet.
| tried to lift him; but he groaned once
or twice and gave few gasps, and all
was over When | saw it was to be life
or death, | made for the door. All Pve
been telling took place in a few seconds
but there is a picture in my mind | could
not paint. When | got out walked
over bodies three or four deep.


Philip Wanser was among the very
last to get out of the gallery. lie gives
the following account OF the calamity:
g got in from the row near the stage.
] saw the fire from the very first. As
looked up to the gallery the scene was
the most terrific that one could imagine,
Men and boys were tearing one over
another, and the shrieks and oaths we're
awful. One man clambered up the heap,
was spun round and round on the heads
Of the thrOng, and flung with crash
could distinctly hear, against the back
of the gallery. Every one was for him
self, and men seemed to become wild
beasts. They were threatening and tear,
ing one another with their hands. Seats
were piled with PROSTATE human beings,
and, as successful strugglers forced their
way over the gasplng forms that lay all
Others who had been crushed to
insensibility tell as they lost the support
OF the living, There was nothing for it
but for myself, and some others who had |
waited, to walk over the piles of dead
bodies on the floor. Hands and feet
were protruded here and there, which
showed that life was still in some OF them
By this time the smoke was dense, and |
Il noise and shouting from the lower
part of the house was terrible. | and
some others managed TO get to the stair
way, and we went down in a mass-how
| couldn't tell you. All this have been
describing took place in less than two
minutes. One man who OF out in the
crowd Just before ME showed me his arm,
when had been bitten most to the bone"