Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1882 — DISASTROUS ACCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

DISASTROUS ACCIDENTS.

A Panic in n Peoria Church Causes the Death of Several People. During the funeral of the Rov. Simon xiuhlehenhoeltcr, at Salem Evangelical Church, in Peoria, 111., a frightful panic occurred. In the rush for the street some forty persons were injured, six, all ladies, seriously. The church is one of the largest in the city, and was filled with the friends of the deceased. AH the seats were filled, and the standing-room in the aisles and about the doors was occupied. Soon after the services commenced the panic occurred. It is said that a seat in the gallery 1 roke down. The people in the vicinity thought the gallery was giving away, and the rush commenced. Men, women and children poured out of the doors loading from the main floor and the gallery into the hall leading to the street. All efforts to stop them were fruitless. The peonle were frantic and would listen to nothing. In loss than two minutes the doorway was blocked up, and the scene that followed was indescribable. The women who were caught in the crowd were thrown down and trampled upon. Their shrieks and the shouting of the men, who seemed to be frightened out of their, senses, were fearful. For fully ten minutes the doorway was blocked up, and, during the greater portion of this time, half a dozen women lay on the steps under the feet of the frightened crowd. A few men who had lost their scare went to work heroically to rescue the women, and succeeded in getting them out after they had been walked over by a large number of men. As fast as taken out the victims were taken to adjoining houses and cared for. Forty persons were.injured, four or more fatally, others being maimed for life. An Artificial Earthquake. In an open space about half a mile north of the public square in Oskaloosa, lowa, stood the powder magazine of H. L. Spencer A Co. Throe boys, one of them the son of the Mayor of Oskaloosv, went out to do a little target shooting with a magazine breech-loading rifle which the Mayor had drawn in a raffle, and had turned over to his son. The youngsters blazed away at the powder-magazine, using it as a target, and one of the explosives pierced the wall and ignited the powder inside the building. In the explosion of the five tons of powder the three boys were instantly killed, their bodies being horribly mangled. The bodies of the unfortunate boys were carried from fifty to 200 yards from the magazine, and mutilated almost beyond recognition. The explosion caused great damage to windows, nearly all the plate-glass fronts in the business quarter of the city being wrecked, while many houses in the north part of the city suffered severely, the damage aggregating not less than $20,000. Many persons were injured by falling glass and debris.