PANIC IN A THEATRE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 14, 8 May 1876, Page 2

PANIC IN A THEATRE.

Cincinnati is mourning a terrible calamity. Robinson's Opera-house in that city on the afternoon of February 5 was packed -with, an audience of '2,500 persons, cliieily women and children, to witness the last representation of the allegory and tableaux' of the "Great Republic," which Mas being performed for the benefit of the Poor Relief Union. Shortly after two o'clock, when the curtain was about to rise, a calcium light in the gallery was turned on, and its glare was upon the curtain—a red light—and there was a slight hissing and odour of the burning chemicals. Some startled person cried "Fire," and the cry was taken up and went from one to another. The majority of the audience rose to their feet in alarm, but tli£ ■people on the lioor did not then get into any panic. Tne cry was first raised in the balcony, and there and in the gallery above the greatest excitement prevailed. There was a fearful rush of people to ami down the stairways, and the currents meeting at the foot the crowds coming from the floor, they were buffeted about like opposing armies, and the vestibule into which all the avenues of egress emptied became densely packed. A flight of four marble steps was in this vestibule, and people slipping down tins were dashed upon by those behind, ami soon the vestibule was a mass of prostrate women and. children three and four deep. Here the most heartrending scenes occurred. There was also a place on the upper stairway, where, at a turn, the people were crashed and crowded, so that they were piled up in '"'bunches," the result being torture and deatii. The cries of " Fire " from the people inside soon caused an alarm outside, and news of the calami :y spread quickly. It was in the vestibule that the worst occurred. An observer says that ho

was standing i;i tho street, and as soon as he heard the cry of '•'Fire," he started to go into the house. Ho got only to the middle of the vestibule, however, for in an instant ib seemed to be idled by the people rushing, from inside. Seine of the lii-.it v/li.i rushed out slipped down the steps, and the throng following them were so terror-stricken that they thought of nothing excepting to fiing themselves out of the doorways. 'J.'liere was

consequently a general piling up of rushing and struggling people. Then women and children got piled up around him waist high, and still the crowds kept coming out. It was awful. Men and. women were groaning, children shrieking, and the "asps and sriirgling sounds showed ihat some were being trampled and smothered to death. Several men from the street coming in to help, they pulled out all they could, but the crowd seemed to pile up as fast as they worked. There were at least 100 people piled up in this way, with the crowd behind rushing and

pushing, but unable to remove the obstruction. Two sL'alwarfc policemen broke into the tioket-nrriee, and in this way managed, to get round the obstruction, and, by fighting their way through the people, got to the inner doors and thrust the crowd back into the hou.ve. This removed the pressure, and enabled the. few iu the vestibule who were not crazed with fear to rescue the others. Had it not been fjr this the loss of life would have been much greater. The vestibule was thou cleared of the living and the dead, and the crowd got to passing out in something like order. They found, however, a jammed street, for the alarm, which had quickly spread, had brought large numbers from all parts of Cincinnati. A strong force of poiiccmen had to be put on guard to keep anything like order, and to prevent the outsiders from rushing into the building to ascertain the fate.of their friends inside. The crowds lingered in the neighbourhood until late at night. There were nine persons killed outright in this disaster, five of'them being children ; seven others were badly hurt, two having since died. There were at least thirty more or less seriously injured. One lady died in her seat from heart disease brought on by fright. Another lady, badby hurt, jumped, from the gallery into the parquette. A party of little children were in the gallery, one of ■ them a little girl. A companion says of her that when the people began to run, they had run too, and the little girl was trying to get over the back of a seat, " when a big man rushed right over her and crushed her on the back of the bench, and killed her there." Terrible tales like this make up the sad story of this disaster, which has seldom been exceeded in the peculiarity of its horrors.