THE CHICAGO FIRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1665, 27 January 1904, Page 60

THE CHICAGO FIRE.

DETAILS BY MAIL.

HEART-RENDING SCENES. Details received by the San Francisco mail regarding the lire at the Iroquois Theatre, Chicago, on New Year’s Eve, when over six hundred lives were lost, show that the people in two of the balconies were enveloped in the first buret of the flames. A large number of these died in their seats, their hands clutching the arms of their chairs. Others attempted to escape, and at one of the staircases leading to the baloonies the firemen afterwards found dead . and charred bodies piled up ten feet high. Five minutes after . the first little tongue of flame was seen, the whole interior of the. beautiful new theatre was a morgue. Barely five minutes after the first alarm was given firemen were struggling into the building, making their way in some fashion through the maddened crowds which streamed forth, and doing what little they could, not only to check the flames, but to rescue the few people in the balconies who were still alive. The flames were soon under control, and then the firemen, with the police, went to the scenes of death on the stairways and in the balcony seats. Men, even those accustomed to scenes of horror, could not approach the dreadful stilled masses calmly. Some fainted, while others clung to each other and cried like little children.

The awful news spread through the city rapidly, and soon men came rushing from all parts of the city, and became maniacs in their distress and anxiety for their lost ones. Many found their wives and children amongst the dead, identifying them perhaps only by some bit of charred clothing or blackened ornament. Dcwn the beautiful staircases of the theatre, which glittered again with electric lights, came a procession of men carrying the dead and dying. -In ten minutes a dozen stores had been converted into hospitals and morgues. Two large restaurants piled up their tables raid counters on top of each other, and threw out great heaps of table linen, to he used as bandages. All the great State street stores threw their main floors open, and sent to the theatre great piles of blankets, rubber, cloth —everything that could be utilised... It is said that the desperate determination of mothers who were present to save their little ones, was the cause of an awful panic. The theatre had many exits, and, hut for the awful panic, most of the people must have escaped, excepting those who were instantly overcome by gas. Despite the bitter weather, great numbers of people stood in tho lane all night, seeking some chance to identify their dead, or to teceive assurance from the living. The polios called out the names of those iu hospital who were able to speak. All the members of the theatrical company escaped, by some miracle, though several otf them were injured. Tho chorus girls were compelled to go into the streets clad only in tights. Women Who got out of the building rushed back in many instances, crying out that their children were lost inside. Tho audience, in its rush for the outer air, seemed to have chosen,- for the greater part, to flee to the left entrance, and to attempt to make its way clown the eastern stairway leading into a lobby of the theatre. Outside of the people burned and suffocated by gas, it was in these two doorways on- the first and second balconies that the greatest loss of, life occurred. When the .firemen entered the building, the dead were found stretched in a* pile reaching from the head of the stairway at least bight feet from the door 1 to a point about five feet in tho rear of the door.