Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1888 — HORROR AT A BULL FIGHT. [ARTICLE]

HORROR AT A BULL FIGHT.

Fire Set by an Incendiary Causes the Death of Eighteen Women and Children. The Enraged Animals Kill Many of the Victims—Persons Become Insane from Terror. [Celaya (Mexico) telegram.] Sunday afternoon, about 4:45 o’clock, the bull-ring here was crowded with spectators of the great national sport. The company of bull-fighters from Leon were still playing with the first bull, when a fire suddenly broke out g n the sunny side of the plaza. A panic seized upon the vast assemblage and a frightful spectacle was the result. The plaza was constructed of wooden masts, reeds, etc., and it was due to this fact that the majority of the people escaped without injury,-being able to force an opening permitting an exit at different points, but many women and children jumped from the top, a distance of from two hundred to three hundred feet, and over one hundred of them were seriously wounded. Eighteen lives were lost. The sides of the plaza being lined with matting as dry as tinder, and there being a slight wind blowing, the amphitheater was in a blaze in a few seconds. Nine dead bodies, in Borne cases so charred as to be unrecognizable, have so far been taken from the smoking ruins. Nine persons were so badly burned that they died next day, making eighteen deaths in all. Sixty-eight persons were very badly burned, and, though they still live, at least ten of them will die this week. Fifty persons in escaping were knocked down and trampled upon by the panic-stricken throng, and are very seriously, but not fatally, injured. The bulls, maddened by the roaring of the flames, broke loose from tbeir shills and rushed wildly through the surging mass of humanity, tossing aloft and knocking over all who stood in their way. Among the eighteen dead were two women who were first gored to death by the bulls and their bodies afterward burned. The scenes in the neighborhood of the bull-ring were sickening beyond description. Women and children, divested of their clothing, an-d suffering from their burns, ran aimlessly through the streets and could scarcely be overtaken or collected by their friends. Several persons lost their reason from the severe mental shocks to which they were subjected. Celaya is mourning now. On every side is I eard the sound of the wailing for the loved ones, mourning for those doomed to die of suffering, by those whose wounds will not prove fatal. It is the saddest tragedy that has ever occurred in the three centuries of the city’s history.