Slaughter of Innocents

A mad dash for better seats at an event in England causes hundreds of innocent children to get trampled.

Barnsley, England. Sixteen children were trampled to death and forty others, several of whom cannot live, were injured in a mad rash for better seats at an entertainment given in the public hall here. There was a great rush to secure admittance to the entertainment, and when the show opened every seat was taken with children, who filled the aisles and were dangerously massed against the lower railing. With a view to relieving this crowding in the gallery the attendants decided to transfer some of the children to the body of the house and one of the ushers called out: “Some of you children come downstairs.” Immediately the rush started and within a few second hundreds of children were being trampled under foot.

“Slaughter of Innocents,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed May 12, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/125.