CHAPTER I.
THE STORY OF THE FIRE.
No disaster, by flood, volcano, wreck or convulsion of nature has in recent times aroused such horror as swept over the civilized world when on December 30, 1903, a death-dealing blast of flame hurtled through the packed auditorium of the Iroquois theater, Chicago, causing the loss of nearly 600 lives of men, women and children, and injuries to unknown scores.
Strong words pale and appear meaningless when used in describing the full enormity of this disaster, which has no recent parallel save in the outbreaks of nature's irresistible forces. There have been greater losses of life by volcanoes, earthquakes and floods, but no fire horror of modern times has equaled this one, which in a brief half-hour turned a beautiful million-dollar theater into an oven piled high with corpses, some burned and mutilated and others almost unmarked in death.
Coming, as it did, in the midst of a holiday season, when the second greatest city in the United States was reveling in the gaiety of Christmas week, this sudden transformation of a playhouse filled with a pleasure-seeking throng into an inferno filled with shrieking living and mutilated dead, came as a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
It was a typical holiday matinee crowd, composed mostly of women and children, with here and there a few men. The production was the gorgeous scenic extravaganza "Mr. Bluebeard," with which the handsome new theater had been opened not a month before. "Don't fail to have the children see 'Mr. Bluebeard,'" was the advertisement spread broadcast throughout the city, and the children were there in force when the scorching sheet of flame leaped from the stage into the balcony and gallery where a thousand were packed.
The building had been heralded abroad as a "fireproof structure," with more than enough exits. Ushers and five men in city uniform were in the aisles. All was apparently safety, mirth and good cheer.
Then came the transformation scene!
The auditorium and the stage were darkened for the popular song "The Pale Moonlight." Eight dashing chorus girls and eight stalwart men in showy costume strolled through the measures of the piece, bathed in a flood of dazzling light. Up in the scenes a stage electrician was directing the "spot-light" which threw the pale moonlight effect on the stage.
Suddenly there was a startled cry. Far overhead where the "spot" was shooting forth its brilliant ray of concentrated light a tiny serpentine tongue of flame crept over the inside of the proscenium drape. It was an insignificant thing, yet the horrible possibilities it entailed flashed over all in an instant. A spark from the light had communicated to the rough edge of the heavy cloth drape. Like a flash it stole across the proscenium and high up into the gridiron above.