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®l)e #loB£r0t>illc JUailg £e(J^cr. VOL. XVII. NO. 104. GLOVER.SVILLE. N. Y., THURSDAY, DECEMBER., 31. 1903— 8 Pages. WHOLE NO. 5032. -Wgrst CatDstiipliE ESTIMATES OF THE DEAD. Coroner Traeger, 73§. Chief O’Neill, BOO. Assistant Chief Schustticr, 450. Fire Chief Musham, 500. Morgue reports, 511. The injured: Dangerously, 100; Others injured, 300. Dead af morgues, undertaker’s list, total 559; police list 535. Count of the house: Orchestra flopr, 895; first balcony, 422; vop bal- , pony, 512. The grand entrance is still beautif its staircases and ten-aces being si GRAPHIC STORY OF THE APPALLING CATASTROPHE CHICAGO, 111., Dec. 31.—More than 500 men, women and children perished in the flames which swept the interior of Iroquois Theatre yesterday after noon. Sorae were burned as they fought to escape from the whirlwind of fire that swept from the stage over the great auditorium, but scores in haled the ignepus a ir and were sti'iclc- en tp death-with hardly a blemish of fire on their faces. Humanity in holiday mood crowded every nobh ahd, comer from orchestra pit to gallery before 2 o’clock. At 3:30 o’clock the' kindling spark had set the awful Are, and' at 4 the ashes of the dead were scattered through the awful At the hour when the matinee crowd CHICAGO, 111., Dec. 31.—Still con fronted by a chaos that wjll take days to straighten out, the iioHce and coro ner’s ofldclals at noon to-day, after twenty hours of continuous toil among the dead and Injured in the Iroquois theatre horror, admitted their inabili ty to compile a correct list of the dead. Injured and missing. A revised state ment was issued at that hour, cutting the number of dead from 591 to 551. The missing were placed at 200, proba-. j^ouse, scores who h ad escaped burning bly among the unidentified dead, and in the fiery prison lay writhing where the injured at 300, of whom 100 are they fell on the streets, or had been Newspaper esUmatea of the dead,bas- stores in the vicinity of Randolph ed on reports from the various morgues ^nd Dearborn streets, and hospitals, vary, the lowest number Panio Follows Panic, given being 564 and the highest 576. The anguish of those who perished, Mayor Harrison Is receiving messages caj;ght in the burst of flame that shot rf e m p a thy to m a ll p .t t s ol t i e | S?d“ t b “ among them messages from mayors of t,Q^rd,” was lost to the 10,000 people old world cities. who witnessed the horrors in the Ghastly Work for Coroner’s Jury. Coroner Trager impanelled a jury irly this morning and conducted it to lerous morgues \ ' ’* streets. \While the panic of those who fought ht the main entrance of the theatre 'avcniA T h e y \nTPrA a.nf^ o t h f ir I __ ‘ut thescenes'in scenes'in thee str<reets ' pleasai ecenthe last of the victims. As soon qe this- is done, hearing of evidence will Rigid Investigation to Ba Made. Investigation of every circumstance connected with the fire will be made Witnesses will be required to state why the doors to the children’s gallery were not left open so every means of exit could have been used. ’i^lThether the building laws and laws regulating flre escapes were complied with will also be investigated. Another matter to be inquired into is why the asbestos curtain did not work. Had that been lowered it is cer tain the loss of life in front of the stags would have been comparatively ^^^^ery ether question relating to the cause of the flre, and to the possibility Of averting its awful consequences w}U ^°A ^ S ^ * fo th e rs, mothers, brothers. Bisters and other relatives and friends, searching fot the dead, was the melan choly spectacle in the vicinity of the ruins throughout the morning. All Chicago Is Stunned. paused on the streets to look house of tragedy. Tea directions drove past a streets. The people seemed stunned. T Were few comments. The hofror o r only admitted of such f' IS, “How many; over f ‘ ik of the relatives!” Tinder the circumstances, the Iro quois was a death trap. There is not a vestige of anything inflammable the Interior. Outside, the walls Standing, with all the glamour of new construction. The marble columns and _______ th st djsihacted attention from the greater bhrror which did n o t become generally known until the flre had done its work. How the FiPje Started. The house itself was darkened, and on the stage sixteen members of the Mr. Rluebeard Co. were just beginning the presentation of the scene known as the “Pale Moonlight” scene. ; Within the wings and above the heads of the actors was a “spot light,” used }h stage craft to produce the light effects. This had just been turned on. Sqddenly a spark flashed out from an exposed arch light, which came into contact with a piece of scenery. When th|S'spark flashed out it caught in the flimsy p a in ty scenery that filled the stage loft. Then a shower of sparks fell onto the stage and the terrified ac tors and chorus girls fled to the wings. In another instant, amid the clamor that had already arisen from the ter ror-stricken audience.tongues of flamfes shot out and flashed menacingly across the stage. Eddie Foy’s Vain Appeal. By this time the panic was on, though the flre itself, to the hands be hind the stage, seemed Innocent, and flre. 5 audience and pleaded with then to be calm. “It will all be over in i minute,” he shouted. “There is no danger.” But even as be spoke some of the rlghtened stage folk had begun to es- sparks from the burning scenery into the balcony. Fpy fled to the wings; actors and actresses filled the imperiled dressing rooms, built one above another, six stories high. Heroes Saved Many Lives. In a flash the interior of the stage loft turned into a mass of flames. The panic on the stage among the perform ers was appalling, but heroes saved the lives of eV'ery'’'htte though ihany were burned before they had been car ried to safety. The failure of the asbestos curtain on the stage to operate was the main cause of the disaster. Eddie Foy tried to ring the curtain down before the stage doors had been opened, but it would not budgfe. pt?ge hands, m w- curtam fell only a few 1 __________ in the ropes. The flames burst und< it and finally through it into the audi torium, where t^e circuit of air from stage doors to the ventilators in le roof of the building fanned and icked the blaze to the human wall that became its prey. An Indescribable Pandemonium. The unfortunates who choked the capacity of the upper balcony were doomed when the sneets of flame But in the lower balcony and on the iround floor, the panic was just as great. Strong and cool-headed men tried to control the terrified throng and that they achieved a measure of success was evinced by the fact that all but three persons who occupied seats in the parquet and parquet cir cles escaped death. . The Horror of Horrors. ay, escape was flames and the only chance for life was late flre escapes on the flames a: in the ii stairway, escape was cut off by the and the only chance \ ' “ inkdequ! ^ icture, the hundrei men, women and children who saw their only chance for life struggled to seize the opportunity. Out of the struggle, as nearly be estimated, less ttanlan 10000 everver 1 e emerg- see the light of day again and >f thesehese mayay dieie fromrom thehe huiurns some of t m d f t b and the breathing of the hot gases that fouled the air of the theatre. Women Jump Fifty Feet to Death. Of those who escaped, many owe their lives to a number of painters who were at work on the third floor of the Northwestern University building, in a rear room that looked out on the thea tre across the alley. These painters were the first to dis cover'the awful panic. They first heard the screams and then saw the struggling mass of humanity at the windows. Already the flames h ad be gun to creep up the outside of the wall beneath the flre escapes and the im- prkoned multitude was hopeless. the gram were picked Up gun to arrive. Heroic Rescues By Painters. The workmen in the University building, with masterly dexterity, shoved ladders and boards from their window to the sill of the theatre win dow across the alley. Across this bridge, fifty feet above tbe ground, vomen, children and men crawled to lafety. workmen dows with blankets ixtii ----- suffering victi water and extingu^s: mveloped the su As this heroic !ted by the v buckets of the flames that was being enacted by the workmen in the upper rooms of the University, women with their children' fathers with their fami lies, and persons of every description were hurling themselves from the flre is to the alley below. Some of Standing, with all the glamour of new frightened stage folk had begun to es- escapes to the alley construction. The marble columns and cape from th i stage doors, and thethese were burning, sculptured figures of tragedy and coip- draft pouring into the building fanned Arrival of the Firemen, cdy are not even blackened with smoke, the fife into a furnace and blew the When the firemen reached the scene catastrophe was at its climax. From the front door of the theatre, within the wake of the panic-stricken crowd that had escaped from the first bal cony, rushed half-crazed mothers, part ed from their children. Some of them were afire and they were seized by brave men who wrapped their over coats about them and saved their lives, Most of the Injured were car ried into the Northwestern University building, where doctors were sum- led at once from every quarter. A Hell on E^rth. almost dead and men' who had been dragged by the firemen from beneath the heaps of dead in the second bal cony, were carried Into the building. Northwestern University Hall was a hell on earth during the hours that followed the catastrophe. Writhing on the floor in their pain, men and women died before they could have their agony soothed. ‘ The down town morgues were filled long before the tomb had given up its ims. After that, bodies were sent ill undertaking establi The injured were sent largely to the imaritan and St. Luke’s hospitals. Every kind of vehicle was used tp odies 0 lly wer patrol balances or in street, came an impson’s restaurant, on Randolph next door to the theatre, be- uuwuuuvvus tjujcutju j j i . \ x . 4'xauK Lydston as their chief, and under him they worked with both speed and sys tem. Three doctors were assigned to a table ,turned for the time being from restaurant to operating use. As fast as a victim was pronounced dead, the body was placed beneath the table anfl a new patient laid on the boards above. In spite of J h e mighty efforts Qf tkephysicians,ho'W6ver,many injured were dtead before they could be given help and some were alive who were passed by as being dead. The movement of an arm or the twitch of a facial muscle was a signal several times answered in haste by watchers who thought they stood above a corpse. The Search For Relatives. Damage to the Theatre. To-day'the main floor of the theatre would make a fair .skqting rink were the seals removed. It Is covered with ice. Icicles hang from the lights, fix tures and( balconies. . The rear wall was bulged several feet and has been propped to prevent its falling. In tak ing out the buildiUg permit the own ers set an estimate of $350,000 as the probable value of the building. The full value when completed is given by 1 with-the mianagement oouies, iiinng tne eiankets that cover ed these horrible relics of what had only been human beings, trylngf to dis cover the bodies of children, of wife, of sweetheart. Pitiful Search for Relatives. From morgpfe to morgue the search ers still are passing to-day crying, sob bing, hysterical, always searching over these black lines of death’s harvest. Coroner Traeger was out at day light. He planned to impanel, a jury during the morning and at once to be gin the placing of the blame for this mighty holocaust. Hundreds Beyond Identification. Scores and Scores of victims never will be identified. The charred bodies will go to their graves without sorrow ing survivors ever having been able to identify them. In these cases even the trinkets and burned scraps of gar ments have not been left to afford means of identification. In some cases heaps of changed flesh and bones, held in blankets, is all that tells of how a human l^fe was crushed The moans of. the injured in the hos pitals to-day brought their deadly mo notonous echo of paiu and suffering. Lives were being snuffed out by the terrible wounds as hour after hour slipped by. ■Exits Were Locked. Town open to audiences. Hundreds rushed to doors In the walls where s i ^ s “Exit”- .promised liberty from j;he~flam®■BW^;■rhd^Tor- crazed theatre, only to be cnished in the human whirlpool and fall by the score at the foot of the locked door ways, to he slaughtered in heaps. ■Workers who again entered t)ie ruins to-day found further evidence of how the locked and rusted doors had aided death in its reaping. Estimates of Ninpbep of Victims. At 9 o'clock the police compiled, a list of the bodies recovered from the ruins and found thal; 591 persons found death in tbe holocaust. With the prospect of finding 'other bodies in the debris, it is almost cei'- tain the number will exceed 600. Coroner Traeger still believes the total will be nearer to 700, as th,e up; per portion qf the stage and part of ih e gallery, n o t thoroughly - searched, may yield up more victims. At the City Hall where the lists of the victims and descriptions of the un identified bodies are being compiled, men, women and children throng the corridors and scan the lists. Dr. M. B. Wolfshon found the body of Mrs. Jacob Cohn at a morgue this morning. Another body has been id< Julia Brewster, a school teac . Neither balcony alned, the stage a i l yfell. The len connected 5 $450,000. N< seats are rulnei, the full loss, it is thought, may $ 150,000 to $200,000. A Charnel House of Horror. The scenes in John R. Thompson's restaurant in Randolph street, adjoin ing the theatre, were ghastly beyond words. Few half hours in battle bring more of horror than the half hour that turn ed the cafe into a charnel house, with its tumbled heaps of corpses, il from the dy doctors and ver the bodies all rove to bring back , th e spark of life. Mostly Women and Chtldrep, some crushed in the rush of the panic, others only the poor broken remains of those who leaped to death. And most of them—almost all of them—^were the forms of women and children. It is estimated that more than 150 bodies were accounted for in Thompson’s ments the efforts of the doctors life, and the madness of those who surged in through the police lines to ransack piles of bodies for relatives and friends, made up a scene of pande monium of which it is hard to form a was organization of I and nurses who in the dying; there vas organization of the police and fire men, but still the restaurant was chaos that left the head bewlldei and,the heart sick. Extent of Horror Not Realized. It will be days, even weeks, before Chicago, staggered by the sweep of death, will realize the lull horror enac ted in the holocaust, With daylight this morning police and firemen again took up their search in the blackened ruins, working on the swaying walls and the wavering roof that threatened collapse every mo ment. Rows Upon Rows of Dead. All suspense centered, about the morgues where the blackened and charred bodies of the dead were rang ed in rows like cordwood. About these houses of death crowds of weeping men and women had waited all night, through the black of mid night and into the gray of the morning —all waiting to find their loved ones tered among the missing, nightight longong a greatrea line mothers.others, All n l a g aced m fathers, brothers and lentified as sacher. Expect to Find More Bodies. Ten fire engines a r e : lent of the theat pumping o ut the lire, which is in- It was decided, in view of the fearful loss of life at the flre, that all other ilderations than those of humanity burial of the dead withoi of £, -.y character. This action was taken without I owners or the scale of wages, and. that even if face to face with the-necessity of working at buri- )ut hindrance ictlon was taken without any tion with the owners or any itative of the other Side in the It was the unanimous if the meeting that thi died “ Ithout que ide of the ages, and. with the-necessity of working a t buri als without prospect of pay at all, no union man could afford to hesitate for a moment. The following order, signed by Mr. \Young was issued Immediately at the close of the meeting: “Owing to the great disaster caused by the fire at the Iroquois Theatre, I do hereby declare a truce in tbe pres ent strike of tbe undei*takers and liv ery drivers for teh days, and do fur- thre request that every man now on strike report at once at his place of employment and do everything in his ■ ■ ■■ ■ lyed in car- EDDIE FQY SAVED HIS BOY. Well-Known Comedian Telle of His Thrilling Experience While Escaping. CHICAGO, 111., Dec. 31.—-Eddie Foy, principal comedian with the “Mr, Biue- GENEVA, Ohio, Dec. 31.—^Train 22, east bound, known as the Lake Shore Limited, crashed into an open switch at the Ashtabula chutes, a mile -west of that town, at‘5:12 o’clock this, morn* . \Two engines were pulling the train at the rate of sixty miles an hour. When they struck the switch, both en* gines and train were turned over. Engineers Spring and McIntosh, atd |!lreman George Kelpin were killed outright, and a number of passengers were injured. The other fireman, named Higby, of CoUinwOod, escaped. Injured, but not fatally. iing in the when the fire broke out In the middle of the second act,” he said. “The moon light scene was on and the double oc tette had the stage. I saw one of the front draperies catch flre and t stepped out in front and told the audience to remain Iquiet, as there was no danger. I tried to prevent a panic t o d gave or ders to lower,the, fire-proof curtain. They-Started to lower It, but it stuck and would not fall all the way do-wn. Then there was an. explosion, which lighted up the entire theatre and in an instant it seemed as. if ever.v- thing were burning. itage and the moment jpened,pened, thhere the doors were o t was a great draft. This caused the flre to ilmg-hapiiiai . -was like A itfe thdatre was in flames—men were screaming and women were fainting. I thought the poor gix’ls down in the dressii rooms imderneath the stage and I ga' theatre was d “Then I thi Foy, 6 int to 'him a went to I seized hiilim in my arms and ran from itre to-- the Sherman house, y makeup. If I had stopped I believe I would 3 ballet girls ar ?eot to And othi At every step they find diamonds and other jewels and furs of the rich est description. No one is permitted to enter the building without a pass from the chief of police and accompanied by a guard. Thousands of dollars’ worth of furs and jewels are being hauled away to the office of the police custodian in wagons. After the identification of the dead, the valuables will be exhibit ed so the heirs of the victims may claim them. Walls Threaten to Fall. The rear and side -walls of the stage are in danger of falling. Architects to-day warned the firemen that th e rear of the building may collapse at any moment and crush to death sveiy- one In that portion of It. -nrnUnwY Dee, o child luise, aged 3 years, nurse, Mrs. George Errett, were miss ing, chartered a train to bring him AJVnUOlS CUJLU. tixv UUXOC> J.XAC &UX was at the home of Dr. Bridges, who found her wandering about the streets in front of the theatre. Mrs. Errett was injured and is at the County hos pital.ital. Thehe littleittle hoy is still missing. trampled to p T l h It is supposed he Robert Caldwell, a boy visiting family of John Dryden, accompai I. Djb'^to ber. son Taylor, i Many Hq;>rt-Rendlng Scenes. Heart-rending scenes are being con- ,acted in the police cusi stantl a er i '‘J the e garments and trinkets left behl in the mad“rush to get out of the bui ing theatre. ^ Little girls’ hats are there, the bright ribbons soiled and \tom. There are sealskin coats, skirts that were tom from struggling women in the rush for safety. Gloves, slippei’s, rubbers, um brellas, cloaks and portions of waists complete the sad evidences of the dis aster. Twenty-five pocketbooks, some of them with cards inclosed, await the owners. One lady’s gold watch was also found. Five bushel baskets were ith purses, gloves and handker- loes found. Drivers’ Strike Suspended. making my escape tri with my little boy.” WORK OF THE GHOULS. In Guise of Messengers of Mercy They Turned Into Fiends.. could work unobserved, but i t was n o t long before the police had discovered ie war on them, every one from tept newspaper report ers and a few others entitled to en trance, but when the blankets were sent from the stores volunteers were called to Oarry them in. The thieves seized the opportunity and entered the place of death in the guise of messen gers of mercy, but once inside the the atre and hidden by the pall of smoke they turned into flOnds. DEAD PILED TEN DEEP, Chief of Police O’Neill Describes Scenes in the Second Balcony. CHICAGO, 111., Dec. 31.—\If you ever saw a field of timothy grass blown flat by the wind and rain of a summer storm, that was the position of the dead at, the exits of the second bal cony,” said Chief of Police O’Neill “In the rush for the stairs they had jammed in the doorway and piled ten deep, lying almost like shingles. 'Wlj.en wq got up the stairs in the dark to the front rows of the victh them were alive and s t f __ pinned down by the great weight of the dead and dying piled upon them, that three strong men could not pull the unfortunate ones free. “It was necessary first to take the dead from the top of the pile, then the rest of the bodies were llftdd and regularly from their positio as their arms had intertwine clutched. “Nothing in my experience has ever approached the awfulness of the sitiia- tion.” MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT. “In common with all other people throughout the land, I extend through you to the people of Chicago my deep- (Continued on Second Page.) linHORUilTED mim IK oko : Jamped Track While Ronnlog Sixty Miles an Hoar, Both Engines and Entire Train Being Oyer” tnmed— Three Kill ed; Seyeral in- lO train took fire and the Ashta bula. fire department was called out tai pjit, diit, the flames. .^Atjioas;. the passengers injured H. Freytog,'21,7 S-wan street, Chicai* goi head cut and body lacerated, also internal Injuries, Madam Baterie Bureau, maid in family of Marshall Fields, Chicago; arms broken and badly bruised, Baggagemaster E, L. Gage, Ashfa- by being ones'seriously hurt. RPliK NOTIFIES ^ lio w e iR ix Tells TiremC ItiGal Stage Has Beep Reached and SMion Has Taken Desperate Torn-— Japan Fniehases Two More • : . * : Battleships. ROME, Dec. 31.—The Japanese min ister a t Rome left for Genoa to inspect the two Argentine' cruisers Morano, and Rivadavia, which have been pur chased by the Japanese government. The guns of the two vessels have not yet been mounted, but it is thought,' if necessity demanded, they could be speedily made ready for ac tive service. LONDON, Dec. 31.—This momlngt fees no particular change in the sltua- tioR in the Par B a s t The struggle of tin dinlomatic warriors to avert, if Ihi#^ R \war between Russia and -war between Jg ito , continues, but there now seems little hope of averting a crakh. One of the most significant features of the situation is th© fact that diplo- circles, outside of \ ----------- of averting trouble, and m comment on the probability of this or that nation -taking a hand should the fight comp. While it Is true that other powers may be drawn into the imhrog- .lio -before it is over, the indications a t •esent are that in the early y stages of d be left to ces to fight It out alone, has been thought that in the event; of a clash, the first power to take a hand would be England, because of her agreement with Japan. Events lately, however, would seem to indi cate' that Great Britain will i possible ally of Russia, but from several sources it is learned that Prance, and the nations included in the triple alliance will maintain an atti tude of strict neutrality. The one posi aibility of'an alliance at present seems to be that China will join hands with her old time enemy, Japan, in an effort to drive out her most powerful foe/ Russia. Meanwhile, all that can be done to avert the struggle is being done by Japanese officials. They have taken a most determined Stand toward Russia’s arrogant attitude, but should the Czar’s officials show a disposition to give in on any of the more important points at issue, there is but little doubt that Japan will be found ready to re linquish an equally important point, Russia, however, has shown no such disposition, and, as has been said, a war seems inevitable. Tlie Liverpool Post to-days prints an qrtlele on the relative fighting prow- .j eaS of the two countries. The paper, ( on the authority of a leading person, in the armament of the world, points out that the estimates of Japan’s strength do pot take into consideration the fact that Japan has recently been a heavy purchaser of fighting material, in fact has been the chief buyer of such ma terial iu both England and on the con tinent, The Brekhardt firm, says this person, is now executing for the Mika, do’s government one of the most im portant orders ever entrusted by a for eign government.
