PICTURE SHOW PANIC.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 40, 2 October 1911, Page 3

PICTURE SHOW PANIC.

TWENTY-SIX KILLED

A senseless jhtnic iir a hibving picture theatre in Caimoushnrg, Pennsylvania, resulted 'in the death of twentysix people, most of whom were smothered or trampled to death (writes a San Francisco correspondent under date Cth September). An explosion of a picture film started it, but no direct damage followed from the explosion except the destruction of the machine. A frightened boy shouted “Fire!” and a huge Russian miner, still more frightened, began rushing madly for an exit, and stampeded the entire audience. The miner tripped at the head of a narrow stairway and rolled down to the street, sweeping ; from their

feet many 1 persons’ who wore waiting their turn to enter, and soon there was a horrible pile of women, children, and a few men at the foot of the steps. Over this pile the maddened crowd in the theatre forced its way. The stairway was jamhed from top to bottom. Some walked over the piled bodies, and, breaking the glass transom over the door, crawled through and dropped to the street. As the throngs swept out of the building over the bodies of the fallen they

spread out when they reached the street. As the press loosened, men, women, and children foil fainting to the footpath. The crush had* been so tight in many cases that persons were carried upright in tiio crowd, not falling until their supporters separated. Some of these carried out thus were crushed to death. The dead body of one Avoman was found clasping tight to her breast her live-year-old son. The-lad had died of suffocation, but there was not a scratch or

a bruise on his body. Another woman, in her excitement, threw her baby from a window, fifty root above the ground. A man caught the child in his arms, uninjured. A young man named McPeako rushed into the rescue work, and was dragging a .body from the pile when a man who had jumped from above struck him on the back, and broke Ids neck, ileal heroism was displayed by Miss' Mary Craig, pianist at the theatre. When the rush started she began to play a slow march. Over and over again she played the march, never faltering. Many caught the swing of the music, and tried to hold back the, crowd. When the audience had swept from the building Miss Craig remained uninjured.