A husband and wife were locked so tightly in one another's arms that the bodies had to be taken out together. A woman had thrown her arms around a child in a vain effort to save her. Both were burned beyond recognition. The sight of the children's bodies broke down the composure of the most restrained of the rescuers. As little form after form was brought out the tears ran down the faces of policemen, firemen and bystanders. Small hands were clenched before childish faces--fruitless attempts at protection from the scorching blast. Most of the children could be recognized. Fate allowed that thin shadow of mercy. They fell beneath their taller companions. The flames reached them, but they were face downward, other forms were above them, and generally their features were spared. The persons crowded off the fire escape platform, and those who jumped voluntarily by their own death saved persons on the lower floor from injury. Scores jumped from the exits at the first balcony, the first to death and injury, the ones behind to comparative safety on the thick cushion of the bodies of those who preceded them and who fell from the balcony above. Other hundreds from the main floor jumped on to the same cushion--an easy distance of six feet--without any injury. When the firemen came they spread nets, but the nets were black, and in the gloom they could not be seen. They saved few lives--argument for the use of white nets hereafter. The chain of mishaps surrounding the catastrophe extended to the fire alarm. There was no fire alarm box in front of the theater, as at other theaters. A stage hand ran down the alley to South Water street and by word of mouth turned in a "still" alarm to No. 13. The box alarm did not follow for some precious minutes. At least four minutes were lost in this way. Of the 900 persons seated in the first and second balconies few if any escaped without serious injury. So fiercely the fire burned during the short time in which hundreds of lives were sacrificed that the velvet cushions of the balcony seats were burned bare. The crowds fought so in their efforts to escape that they tore away the iron railings of the balconies, leaping upon the people below. From 3 o'clock, when the alarm was sent in, to 7:30 o'clock, when the doors of the theater were closed, the charred, torn, and blistered bodies were carried from the building at the rate of four a minute. One hundred were taken out across the plank way. Many blankets filled with fragments of human bodies were taken from the building. Hundreds of bodies were taken from the building, their clothing gone, their faces charred beyond recognition. Under pretense of serving as rescuers ghouls gained entrance to the theater and robbed the dead and dying in the midst of the fire.