DEAD BODIES FOUND.
"The corpses recovered were, as has been before stated, taken to the street, removed two blocks away from the scene of the disaster, and, for the time being, laid out upon the pavement, awaiting the recognition of friends. Fathers and mothers, who in the tumult of the stampede had become separated from children; husbands who, despite their efforts, had felt themselves torn away from wives; friends who had been
SUDDENLY AND FOREVER PARTED
from friends; young men, who, while they had no friends to lose in the building, yet felt themselves bereft by reason of the common sympathy of the human heart; all these had, during the time preceding the recovery of the bodies, filled the streets and poured out their inconsolable grief in loudest tones. The Times reporter to whose lot fell the recording of the scenes depicted under this head hopes that it may never again be his to witness a repetition of the scene. The anguish, the frenzy, the loud wailings, the heart-broken demonstrations were, indeed, overpowering and calculated to make an impression upon even the most stony heart that will last as long as reason holds its sway.
THE FRENZY OF FRIENDS.
"The silent bearers of these bodies, as they came and went, could not but be moved to tears at the reception which their burdens met. Here a charming girl, cut off in the flower of her youth and at the height of her pleasure; there a promising lad, full of hope but an hour before. Again, the silvered head of a loved mother, and soon the sturdy frame of one who had passed the heydey of youth and was beginning to enjoy the fruits of his youthful labors. There were people well known, whose sudden taking away will shock many a friend this morning; and there were others, too, male and female, who, lacking friends in life, found no mourners save the full heart of a sympathetic public to regret their departure.
TOO HORRIBLE TO DWELL UPON.
"But these scenes are too painful to be dwelt upon. One by one the dead were removed, some to near hotels, to await the coming dawn, when they might be taken to their late homes, and others being sent to the morgue by the police. At 2 o'clock officers were still searching, and the populace who had been drawn together by the awful catastrophe had dispersed in the main, although a few still lingered about the ruins, anxious to offer assistance where it might most be needed, while two streams of water continued to be poured into the building that every spark might be extinguished.
HOW THEATERS SHOULD BE BUILT.
"Granting that the conflagration detailed never happened, it is something liable to occur at any time in this city. Newspaper accounts more sensational in headlines and more shocking in narrative are to be expected almost any morning. The above is but a suggestion of what may at any time become a reality. Theaters are so built and so crammed with inflammable materials that a fire once started in them would in an incredibly short period gain such headway that nothing under heaven could check its mad and devouring career. Furthermore, the means of exit and all other avenues of escape are so limited that a panic once inaugurated in a crowded house would bring destruction upon the heads of a large proportion of the audience. Have theater-goers in Chicago ever thought of this, as, crowded into a seat, with means of hasty exit cut off, they have sat and looked around them upon the hundreds of others similarly situated?