When the women reached this scene they shrieked as though bereft of all their kindred, but the majority of them were forced to admit that they knew no one among the dead. Occasionally some agonized mother or wife recognized the charred remains of a loved one, and the woman wept as only a woman can weep.
Keeper McGuire, who has witnessed much sorrow in his place, and who is supposed to have a heart of adamant, wiped tears from his eyes, and then tried to excuse himself by saying: “This is too much. I am almost unnerved.”
Occasionally some plain, methodical person entered, and, through close searching, discovered one who was known to him. In a business-like way the discoverer pinned a card or a slip of paper, bearing the man’s name, to what remained of the clothing. Young and giddy girls, who should have been chastised for their impudence, flaunted themselves in the presence of distressed visitors, and seemed to enjoy their trip through the Morgue.
On each side of the building is a yard, and there are many windows. Small boys and stalwart men peered through these windows and indulged in expressions that were unseemly. This outside rabble became so unruly that an additional force of police was called upon to prevent a crush into the building.
None of the bodies were put on the slabs. All were on the flooring. The faces were so blackened by the fire that they could not be recognized, and it was only through clothing or jewelry that any were identified. The undertakers of Brooklyn combined together and volunteered their services in behalf of the sorrow-stricken families. They were of very great assistance to the police in preventing professional mourners from robbing the dead. One woman recognized her brother when she discovered a stud in his shirt bosom. Another woman, with a small piece of cloth and a piece of shirt bosom, identified her husband, and saying, “He has $100 in his pockets,” put her hand in his vest pocket and took therefrom that amount.
The arms of nearly all the dead were fixed as though shielding their faces, and one woman had drawn her clothing over her face and clinched her hands above her forehead. Two young men were grappled together as though they had had a personal encounter in an attempt to escape from the theatre. Others lay on their sides in the manner of persons who thus slumber. Their watch chains and other jewelry were beautifully bright, and the clothing of all was blackened through the fire.
In only about one-third of the cases were the limbs exposed through the torn and burned clothing. Uplifted hands, whose fingers were shining bones, bore golden rings, and shoeless feet glistened in their whiteness. The hair and whiskers were gone, and faces were terribly scarred. A few of the bodies were burned to a crisp, and these were put into rough pine boxes, and all hope for their identification was given up.
Until late in the afternoon, men, women, and children flocked to the Washington street station to tell of fathers, husbands, brothers, and children who had not returned to their homes since the evening previous. Hour by hour the list of missing persons increased in numbers until it comprised nearly 200 names. All who made inquiry for friends or relatives were necessarily disappointed, for the blackened, charred bodies were few of them in a condition to be identified. Strong men, who had kept up both heart and hope, broke down and sobbed like women when they learned their own flesh and blood might never be discovered from out of the scores of shapeless trunks that were being exhumed from the ruins. Women came in sobbing and went away convulsed with grief. The policemen themselves often surrendered their forced self-possession and sobbed aloud.
In the evening the work was continued by the aid of calcium lights. It was thought best to discontinue the removal of the bodies from the rear through Theatre alley to Myrtle avenue. Sixty-seven in all had been taken out that way. The main entrance, with the ghastly burdens still regularly coming out of it, was thrown into bold relief. The burner and lantern had been knocked off the street lamp over the way, and a great flame of gas blazed and flared into the air, lighting up the scorched and splintered doorway and the upturned faces of the throng. A calcium light on the sidewalk near the door illumined the corridor to the point where the floor had broken, and there another was fixed whose rays shone directly into the deep pit in which the earlier search had discovered the horrible mass of charred human bodies.
This pit was the cellar of the main corridor, and its ruins were separated from the debris in the auditorium by the strong foundation wall that had borne the gallery columns. It was not until nine o’clock that this cellar, about twelve feet wide, and running through to the foundation wall on the alley side, was cleared. Over one hundred and fifty bodies had been removed from it.