"I attended the fateful matinee performance, accompanied by my wife, my sister-in-law and my little girl. We occupied seats in the third row of the first balcony at the extreme north end of the theater, next to the alley. At the time the fire broke out we were sitting where we could look right over to the extreme left of the stage, and what seemed to be a couple of limes, or an electric light; we could see sparks dropping from that sometimes. We could not see the light itself, but could see those sparks, evidently dropping from that kind of a light. "That was my first impression upon seeing it. And instantly there was more or less excitement, and the party who played the part of "Bluebeard" came to the extreme front of the stage at our extreme left and tried to allay the excitement by making motions with his hands, keeping the orchestra playing and the girls dancing, at the same time trying to get the audience to keep quiet. He said that there was danger from excitement, but not much danger from the fire. "There was much excitement in the immediate vicinity of my seats, with no gentlemen nearer than the three gentlemen sitting a little further to my right and back in the second section from us towards the rear were two young men; all others were women and children. There seemed to be perfect confusion and I rose to my feet and tried to quiet them, and counseled that they should not become excited; that there was more danger from a panic than there was from the fire. I never dreamed that the fire could reach us there, and we had to keep our positions in our seats, as I had counseled others to keep quiet, and it would not look very well for us to take the lead then and run, so we remained there until my wife said to me, 'Every one has left their seats, and we must get out of here.' "I then turned and looked at the stage and saw how the fire had progressed and said to her: 'It is a race with death,' and I tried then to get my little girl, who was eleven years old, next to me. She was sitting next to the aisle. I reached beyond my wife and sister-in-law and I got my little girl and then I tried to crowd them into the aisle. "The pressure was so great I could not get them into the aisle. People crowded up the aisle so thick I could not get them in there, and I discovered the seats in our rear had been vacated. Everybody was getting to the aisle, and I told my wife our only show was over these seats, and I took my little girl and started and told them to follow me, which they did. At that time in the extreme left-hand corner back of us we could see light coming up--they had got an opening there in the rear of this balcony. "We couldn't see any opening, but we could see the light from the opening, and then we went over the seats. I didn't look back after I started. My wife and sister-in-law followed us, and we went over the seats and out of that rear exit back of the seats to the extreme north into the alley, where we found a fire escape.