"To one who has stood on Mission Street, opposite the Grand Opera-house, yesterday forenoon, and 'viewed the battle from afar,' as it might be said, it seemed that a large number of people had run completely mad over the desire to hear Patti sing. Such an excited, turbulent, and, in fact, desperate crowd never massed in front of a theatre for the purpose of purchasing tickets. It absolutely fought for tickets, and it is questionable whether, if it had been an actual riot by a fierce and determined mob, the scene could have been more exciting or the wreck of the entrance of the theatre more complete. After the throng had melted away the approaches to the box-office looked as if they had been visited by a first-class Kansas cyclone in one of its worst moods. The fact that tickets were on sale for several performances had much to do with it. It was a sort of clean-up for last evening and to-day's _matinée_, but above all for the Patti night on Tuesday. A line began to form as early as five o'clock in the morning, and it grew and multiplied until at ten o'clock it had turned the corner on Third Street, while the main entrance was packed solid with a writhing and twisting mass of humanity, which pressed close to the glass doors which form the first barrier, and which were guarded by a lone policeman. He did his best to reduce the pressure upon himself and upon the doors, but as the time passed and the box-office did not open the crowd became more noisy and unmanageable, and finally an irresistible rush was made for the doors. They did not resist an instant, and gave way as though they had been made of paper. In the fierce tumult which followed the glass was all broken out of them, a boy being hurled bodily through one of the panes, with a most painful result to him, for he fell cut and bruised inside. There was not an inch of available space between the street and the main entrance that was not occupied by men, women, or children, indiscriminately huddled in together. The potted plants were overturned and annihilated under the feet of the throng; the glass in the large pictures which adorned the walls was broken, and the pictures themselves dragged to the floor. The box-office was besieged by a solidly-packed and howling mob, the regular line entirely overwhelmed, and a grand struggle ensued to get as near the box-office--which had not been opened--as possible. Then the crowd itself essayed to get into some sort of order.