"But when it came to the turns where they focus into the lobby the poor women and children were piled up into indiscriminate heaps. The screams and cries they uttered were something terrible. It was an impossibility to allay the panic and the frightened people simply trampled on those in front of them.
"Some of the people in the orchestra chairs immediately in front of the stage must have been burned by the fire. The fire darted directly among them and the chairs began burning at once. Those on this floor far enough in the rear to escape these flames would have been all right except for the crush of the panic.
"Sullivan, who was with me, was the last man out of the orchestra chairs who was not injured. Whoever was behind us must have been suffocated or burned to death. How many there were I have no means of knowing."
NARROW ESCAPES OF YOUNG AND OLD.
One of the narrow escapes in the first rush for the open air was that of Winnie Gallagher, 11 years old, 4925 Michigan avenue. The child, who was with her mother in the third row, was left behind in the rush for safety. She climbed to the top of the seat and, stepping from one chair to another, finally reached the door. There she was nearly crushed in the crowd. At the Central police station the child was restored to her mother.
Miss Lila Hazel Coulter, of 4760 Champlain avenue, was sitting with Mr. Kenneth Collins and Miss Helen Dickinson, 3637 Michigan avenue, in the eighth row in the parquet. She escaped in safety.
"I was sitting in the fifth seat from the aisle," said Miss Coulter, "but the fire, which was bursting out from both sides of the stage, had such a fascination for me."
D. W. Dimmick, of Apple River, Ill., an old man of 70, with a long, white beard, was standing in the upper gallery when the fire broke out.
"I was with a party of four," said Mr. Dimmick. "I saw small pieces of what looked like burning paper dropping down from above at the left of the curtain. At the same time small puffs of smoke seemed to shoot out into the house. A boy in the gallery near me called 'fire,' but there were plenty of people to stop him.
"'Keep quiet!' I told him. 'If you don't look out, you'll start a panic.'