A PANIC IN A THEATRE. Sixteen Persons Killed and Twelve Badly Injured.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 81, 20 December 1884, Page 6

A PANIC IN A THEATRE. Sixteen Persons Killed and Twelve Badly Injured.

Glasgow, November 1. — There was a panic this evening at the Star Theatre, caused by the cry of fire. During the rush of the audience to escape from the building, sixteen persons were killed, and twelve seriously injured. The performance had proceeded without interruption until shortly after nine o'clock, when some persons shouted " Fire !" and the whole audience instantly rose to their feet and made a rush to the exits. The great mass of people in the pit, in rushing therefrom, met the crushing crowd pouring down from the gallery. A fearful and fatal block followed. The wild shrieks of agony and despairing cries for help could not then bo answered. The mass of panic-stricken and struggling humanity was appealed to by the officers of the theatre and by the police to hold back, but the appeals were unheeded. The crazed crowd frantically pressed towards the outlets, trampling down and over the weaker ones until the street was reached. When the theatre was finally cleared, sixteen corpses were found on the stairs leading from the gallery, and twelve persons were so badly injured that they only gave evidence that life was not extinct by their piteous moans. Upon the first alarm being rung, the whole fire brigade quickly went to the rescue, and with the police tried their utmost to allay the panic and rescue the dead and dying, but they were too late to be of much effective service. The police and citizens finally succeeded in forcing their way into the building, and then aided all they could to escape to the street, but the mass was so wedged that they were sadly interfered with in their humane labours. The city ambulance corps conveyed the wounded and dead to the infirmary. The wounded were so overcome that they were as helpless as the dead. It was^learned that the author of the cry of fire was a former employee of the theatre who had been dismissed. The ; audience numbered about 2,000. The performance was chiefly music-hall business Another account says the alarm arose while a trapeze performer was taking a dive from the ceiling of the theatre to a net hanging in mid-air, and one of the audience shouted "Fire! "meaning that the performer had gone too near the footlights. Glasgow, November 2. —The man whose cry of '* Fire !" caused the panic in the Star Theatre last evening has been arrested. He was drunk when he raised the false alarm. Persons in the theatre at the time describe the scene on the staircase as terrible. The steps were strewn with ribbons, hats, sacques and shawls. The victims were first suffocated and then trampled upon. The panic lasted fifteen minutes. It is a noteworthy fact that the authorities had disapproved of the means of exit and contemplated the construction of an additional exit from the gallery. The scenes witnessed when the relatives identified the dead were most affecting. Among the victims were eight men.