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By nightfall, after hours in which telephone exchanges were jammed with calls, and in which hospital staffs and volunteer workers of all kinds toiled in the humid heat which oppressed the city, Hartford knew how badly it had been hurt. In the worst circus disaster in U.S. history, 128 bodies lay on army cots, neatly set out on the drill floor of the grey, stone State Guard Armory, and others were arriving. More than half the bodies there, and more than half the swathed, drugged forms in the crowded hospitals were children. Almost all the rest were women. Hartford's men, who had been at work during the matinee, were left to stand silently in the bleak corridors, or to walk unsteadily beside the cots at the morgue.
Uncertain Reunion. The slow task of identifying the dead went on until after midnight, began again, next morning, continued through the day. Time after time, mothers, fathers and husbands, with ammonia-soaked gauze held to their faces, saw the figures they sought, but could not recognize them. Doctors, dentists and even jewelers, were called to check fillings, scars, rings and watches. Volunteer workers on the armory's drill floor asked patiently, "Was there a wide space between his front teeth? Did he have any identifying scars? Did she have gold fillings?"
The State's Attorney and the chief of State Police asked the questions which were on thousands of other lips. How did the fire start? Eyewitnesses swore the blaze first smouldered at the bottom of the tent near a canvas section raised as a men's restroom. Why did the tent burn with that celluloid fierceness? Circus men said the 19-ton big top had been sprayed with a waterproofing solution last April. It had not been inspected before the show by the Hartford fire marshal.
Five officials and employes of the circus were arrested on technical charges of manslaughter and released on heavy bond. Warrants were issued for four more. Nobody seemed to know what would happen to the circus. All of its performers, roustabouts and animals had escaped unscathed, and it had another tent stored at winter headquarters at Sarasota, Fla.
At week's end the death toll had mounted to 158. Hospitals were treating more than 100 badly burned women and children. Hartford was a city of funerals. Every hearse, every livery car was in constant use; undertakers toiled night & day, and some funeral parlors were holding services at 15-minute intervals. In the late hours Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday the slow processions moved through the streets; the quiet crowds gathered, dispersed and gathered again in the cemeteries.