The Numbers in the Theatre.
We have obtained from the returns of the Treasurer what we believe to be a correct list of all who were in the theatre on the night of the fire as spectators, and have also procured a full list of the employees.
| In the dress circle | 300 |
| In the parquet | 250 |
| In the gallery | 405 |
| Actors and actresses | 21 |
| Supernumeraries | 20 |
| Scene shifters and the like | 10 |
| Orchestra | 12 |
| Dressers, ushers, check takers, etc., etc. | 22 |
| In all about | 1,040 |
Although it is generally presumed that places of amusement are more apt to be crowded and more subject to fires than churches, history shows that fires in churches have proved even more fatal to human life than all the theatres that were ever burned.
On the 27th of May, 1875, a shocking catastrophe happened in the French Catholic Church, at South Holyoke, Massachusetts, which in many respects was much like that in Brooklyn. The vesper hymn was being sung, when a candle at the altar set fire to the draperies surrounding the image of the Virgin Mary. There were about seven hundred people present, of whom those in the body of the church escaped without difficulty. But the flames streamed upwards to the galleries and spread along them, while the crowd on the staircase became a densely-packed, panic-stricken mass. Many were killed or severely wounded in the crush, besides those who were overtaken by the flames and burned to death. The whole thing lasted but twenty minutes, and in that time over seventy lives were lost.
One of the most terrible disasters of modern times, also strikingly similar to this recent disaster, occurred in the Church of the Jesuits, at Santiago, in Chili, on the 8th of December, 1863. It was the last day of the celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and the church had been elaborately decorated for the performance of mass.
A gigantic image of the Virgin, in whose honor the celebration was held, occupied a prominent position in the church, and all around pasteboard devices and thickly intertwining draperies covered the masonry of the church from floor to ceiling. Festoons led from pillar to pillar, and from the roof and projecting arches hung twenty thousand paraffine lamps. The women of Santiago, who on these occasions go from church to church, had filled the Church of the Jesuits. Three thousand persons, the greater number of whom were women and children, were present in this most venerable of Santiago’s churches, and even on the steps outside women knelt in prayer to the Virgin, whose altar they were unable to reach. In the midst of the ceremony a paraffine lamp burst, and the flames at once caught the draperies and festoons surrounding it. Then from arch to arch and pillar to pillar the fire leaped, the lines that held the lamps aloft being burned the burning paraffine was emptied on the women below; and, while these twenty thousand vessels of flaming liquid were deluging the unfortunate women, the decorations above carried the flames to the roof, which burned and crackled like a tinder-box.
A rush was made for the great centre door, and in a few minutes it was hopelessly blocked, while only a few knew of the small door beyond the altar. As women endeavored to escape through the crowd, others who were burning clutched their dresses and cried in piteous tones for help, and clinging in their agony communicated the flame that was consuming them to the persons whom they had seized. Some women in their desperation divested themselves of their clothing, and a few succeeded in effecting their escape, but only a few. Each moment increased the crowd and intensified the block at the main door, and while it became more and more difficult to escape, the flames were spreading on the floor, flying from one prostrate body to another, and destroying the panic-stricken creatures by scores and hundreds, while the church resounded with piteous cries for help and still more heartrending shrieks of agony; the vast roof now gave way, and came down with its blazing beams and rafters, crushing and inundating the seething mass of tortured individuals beneath it. When the fire had burned itself out and workmen could get at the ruins, two thousand corpses were carried out.
Relief for the Destitute.
As soon as it was known that so many had perished in the flames, a generous spirit of rivalry sprang up among the proprietors of places of amusement all over the country, as to whom should contribute the largest amount of money for the relief of the survivors and those rendered destitute by the fire. Individual actors also subscribed liberally, and a relief association was organized to receive and disburse the money thus contributed. Memorial services were held in New York and Brooklyn the Sunday after the fire, and prominent clergymen all over the country selected the terrible catastrophe as a theme for eloquent sermons.