PANIC IN A THEATRE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10599, 20 February 1896, Page 8

PANIC IN A THEATRE.

TWENTY-SEVEN KILLED.

FIFTY-TWO INJURED,

Twenty-seven dead ', and 52 injured is th( result briefly told of -b_ frightful mistake to__{ by the impetuous man in the Front etrecj Theatre, Baltimore, cv. December 27. It wouU seem that there could be so greater death-traj than this building if it had been especially constructed for the purpose. The floors are all high pitched. The utiles are narrow, the seats close together, the staircase narrow. Then, too, the audience was composed of people the worst to handle in inch a panic. They were all Poles. Thesa people are of a highly excitable nature. A .onch, and they are ofi in the wildest way. The mere announcement of " Fire ! " was sufficient to ' start them on the way to the door of the theatre. Fighting, shouting, cursing, praying, they fought for life, and in this fight many died. The policemen who tried to handle the crowd Bay that never in their experience have they seen men and women who so nearly approached wild beasts in their actions. It was not until after they had gotten out of the theatre that they seemed to think of others than themselves, and when they were free and remembered that a wife or a child was in the jamb behind them they would turn arouud and battle as hard to get bask as they did to get out.

Complaint was made early of the smell ol gas, and one of the theatre employees undertook to locate the leak. He went into tha gallery and shoved himself to tbe front, leaning over the rail. Over the boxes there is a blackened hole in the wall. The man in the gallery struck a match. He had to lean fat over the rail in order to get at the hole.

The Poles near the man were watching bis action intently, yet not one of them eantioned him against applying a match to the hole. The first match went out, and he struck another, and, gnardiug it with his hands, passed it toward the hole. In an instant it ignited tha gas, wbich was escaping in very considerable quantities, and a long tongue of flame sprang out of the hole.

The man who caused the panic shouted i " Fire ! fice ! My God ! save yourselves !"

In a minute they were acting on tfae advice of the fool. They arose from their seats, and some of them started for the door. Several hurried in order to get ahead of the others. They all began to jabber together, and in less time than it can be told the panic was well under weigh. So far as can be learned there was not a single voice in the galleries that cautioned the spectators there to restrain themselves. The actors were trying to quiet the audience, bat their voices were hardly heard, aud no attention seemed to bs paid to them.

A few persona sat in their seats, bnt nearly everybody in the building joined in the mad rush for the front of the house. Then .the actors did the only sensible thing that seemed to have been done in the whole night. They jumped down from the stage and pulled people out of the rear of the crowd and urged them to escape by way of the stage. At least 50 persons were sent out this way.

Just about tbis time someone turned off the gas. This naturally added to the confusion, and the crowd was at white heat of frenzy, as it is uot likely that any tiling could have been done to reassure them. The crowds from the galleries that had to come down that f atel staircase met the crowd that poured cut from the main floor. Here they piled np and seemed to weld into almost an indissoluble mass. AVomen left their children and husbands their wives alone to battle for an exit.

It was more than half an hour before the crowd was gotten out of the lobby. At lenst every man and woman had to be forcibly disentangled from the jamb. An evidenoe of the crush is the large number of shoes that were found by the police after everything was o»er.