Reminiscences of the old fire laddies and volunteer fire departments of New York and Brooklyn. . persons had perished in the flames,and even this was doubted. Thelast man within the burning build-ing had looked around the lowerauditorium, and saw no one in the extreme end of thetopmost gallery there were im-prisoned several hundred souls,suffocated by the volumes ofsmoke that poured down from the ^ burning roof, and who gave no A. Sparks. sign that they were miserablyperishing there. It was not untilthe morning of the 6th, when theflames were under control and thefiremen began their
Reminiscences of the old fire laddies and volunteer fire departments of New York and Brooklyn. . persons had perished in the flames,and even this was doubted. Thelast man within the burning build-ing had looked around the lowerauditorium, and saw no one in the extreme end of thetopmost gallery there were im-prisoned several hundred souls,suffocated by the volumes ofsmoke that poured down from the ^ burning roof, and who gave no A. Sparks. sign that they were miserablyperishing there. It was not untilthe morning of the 6th, when theflames were under control and thefiremen began their search amongthe ruins, that the exploration of Burning of the Brooklyn Theater. 71. terrible swiftness along this covering of the dome, thus firing the roofat once and filling the upper part of the theater with a dense, suffocat-ing smoke. This smoke was forced down toward the floor, and, in aninconceivably brief space, enveloped the entire upper gallery in itsfolds. Those in this tier had meanwhile rushed toward the entrance,but the stairs leading downward were tortuous and narrow, and theasphyxia that speedily seized upon the struggling crowd made eventhis slight chance of escape impracticable. Therefore, the first ofthose who reached the gallery entrance only were able to make theirway to the street, and the rest either suffocated as they were strivingto escape or sank down to await the fiery death that soon followed. When the searchers went about their work, the most of them werefound under the vestibule, doubtless as they had fallen when thatportion of the gallery fell where they had gathered. On the night of this terrible holocaust the play of Two Orphans was b
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidldpd63166850, bookyear1885
