Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1904 — CITY BOWED IN GRIEF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CITY BOWED IN GRIEF

CHICAGO MOURNS VICTIMB OF THEATER HORROR. Continuous Procsssion of I'nncrals In City’s streets— Bells Toll Knell of the Dead—Dig; Graves at Night—All Theaters Clossd Indefinitely. Chicago is a city of mourning. For three days a continuous procession of hearses bore the mangled bodies of the theater horror victims to their snowy graves, More funerals were held in Chicago Sunday than ever before in a single day In an American city. According to the burial permits of the health department, 256 bodies were buried that day in local cemeteries or shipped out of town. Of these 226 were bodies of those who had lost their lives in the Iroquois Theater fire. Funerals of fire victims began Friday, when eighty-nine were buried. One hundred and ninety-seven were interred Saturday. In the three days given over to burials, funeral services were said over 512 of the bodies, 283 of which have been placed in Chicago burying grounds and 229 shipped to a distance. But eighty identified dead and six unidentified remained on Monday to be consigned to their last resting places. All the identified dead were interred by Tuesday. Funerals began as early as 7:30 o’clock Saturday morning. All day long, with crisp sound of wheels crunching on the now, they lined the streets leading to cemeteries in an almost unbroken procession. Many bodies were not lowered into their graves until after sundown. Fifty bodies were interred in Graceland, forty in Calvary, thirty in Forest Home. At one time in the afternoon thirty bodies were being lowered in the graves at one time in Graceland in plain view from the roadway. Sunlight from cloudless heavens sparkled over the snowydesolation of the cemetery. All graves were leveled under the deed mantle of white. Knell of the Dead. By an official proclamation of Mayor Harrison Saturday was set aside as a day of mourning. Business in the downtown district practically was suspended. The large department stores closed at 1 o’clock, the Board of Trade at 11 o’clock, and the Stock Exchange, Board of Education, the courts and the public offices in the County Building and the City Hall were closed throughout the day. Slowly-, solemnly, a boom of many bells sounded the knell of the dead who perished in the Iroquois Theater fire. In

Thirty-Six Chicago Playhouses Shut by Mayor's Sweeping Kiliet. Aghast at the possibilities of another theater horror, the Chicago authorities on Saturday sought the safety of a multitude of play-goers by closing the doors of every amusement house iu Chicago. Not one of the thirty-six theaters and concert halls of the city was open for business that night. Despite the terrible warning offered by the Iroquois disaster, perhaps 40,000 pleasure seekers were turned away from the theater entrances Saturday evening, the edict for public aafety including buildings like the Auditorium, in which there are a few violations of the code, as well as the flimsily constructed theaters in which the infractions are so gross as to make the houses fire traps of the most treacherous kind. The action, which was taken in the name of the public weal by Mayor Harrison, means a suspension of performances for weeks in some -of the theaters, months in others where the structures will have to be remodeled, while in others nothing will suffice but a tearing down and a rebuilding.

EVERY THEATER CLOSED.