“ In fact, this was their only, or at all events their best chance of safety; but, unhappily, a multitude, under the influence of the wildest consternation, is insensible to every motive or feeling except the panic by which it is actuated, and rushes blindly into the jaws of the very destruction which the brute impulse of fear impels it to shun. In this case the rush was rendered still more tremendous, and the mortality increased, by the friends of individuals who had fallen, trying to stem the human torrent that was rolling over them. ”

“ Nay more, we have not a shadow of doubt in our mind, that had the congregation on Sunday been fairly assembled before the accident of the west gallery took place, the concussion usually produced by the rising of the multitude to prayer, would have occasioned the downfal of the entire range, and led to a calamity incomparably more dreadful than even that which has actually occurred. ”

“ Many escaped through the windows, which are nearly all broken; and from those on the gallery stairs, which were broken open by the beadle from the outside, part of the crowd rolled out, and were dragged from beneath to prevent others falling above them. Here also several accidents took place, some of them severe. It is remarkable, that many, who have escaped with no injury, have no recollection whatever of what took place, or how they escaped. ”

“ At a low calculation there must have been fully an equal number immediately underneath; so that, at the moment of the catastrophe, probably more than 500 human beings were buried in the ruin and havoc with which the rapacity of a needy or unprincipled contractor, and the unaccountable negligence of the legal conservators of the edifice are alone chargeable. From the appearances presented by the wreck it seems evident that the immediate cause of the accident was the yielding of the longitudinal beam into which the lower extremities of the joists were so slightly inserted ”

“ An architect has since surveyed the south gallery, and was astonished to finds some of the joists altogether off the great beam,—having no other support to prevent their fall than the nails that attached them to the floor above. Farther, he observed that the pillars which support the beam of what was the north gallery, are not placed in its centre, but towards the outer angle.
This day Mr Martin preached in the forenoon from a tent, to a considerable audience assembled in a small park adjoining the church-yard ”

“ The grooves or notches in the longitudinal beam for receiving the lower extremities of the cross beams are only an inch deep at the upper part, and scarcely a quarter of an inch at the lower; so that if the front of the gallery had by any accident been deflected half an inch from the perpendicular, the destruction of the whole was inevitable. ”

“ It was stated that she was in the act of leaning forward when one of the joists fell, and rested on her neck, which was pressed on the other side against the top of a pew.
The casualties would in this manner have been comparatively few, if the rest of the congregation had retained sufficient presence of mind to have remained for a little time in their seats. But this in a mixed multitude of men, women, and children, having along with them, in many cases, their nearest relatives, for whom they were even more anxious than for themselves, was hardly to be expected ”

“ So dreadfully was she overwhelmed by this unexpected and heavy calamity, that fear was entertained for her life. A young lady, a stranger, had in the first moment of alarm effected her escape, but returned in search of her mother, and perished.
Besides those who were either killed on the spot or died soon afterwards, about 150 persons have more or less suffered from the injuries they received on this melancholy occasion; and many persons were confined to bed on Tuesday and yesterday who had been walking about all Monday. ”

“ The temporary stoppages which these fruitless efforts occasioned, only rendered the multitude behind more desperate, and more determined to force their way out, and their power was resistless—most of those who fell, fell to rise no more. ”

“ Such persons as had sufficient fortitude to remain in their pews escaped unhurt. Several who were under the gallery when it fell, prostrated themselves in the pews, and also sustained no injury.—Many reached the open air in a state approaching to nakedness their clothes being literally torn off them. ”

“ Since the fatal accident which took place in the New Church, Kilmarnock, about five and twenty years ago, when upwards of a score of individuals lost their lives by the falling of a staircase, and the rush which it occasioned, no event of a similar description, and attended with results equally calamitous, has occurred in this country until the fatal catastrophe of Sunday last at Kirkcaldy. ”

“ Another, a tall and powerful man, with a boy by his side, at the request of some others, pushed forward to pull open the bolts of the south door, and returning in search of his son, found him on the floor trampled to death by the very persons in whose behalf he had so generously exerted himself. ”

“ While standing in the church-yard, looking at the interment of one of the corpses, we were much affected with the simple appeal made by an old man to the persons who had escorted it to the burying-ground:—"Any of you, gentlemen, who are disengaged will be so good as go down and help to bring up Thomas Watson's wife. ”

“ Immediately after the disaster the special constables were called out, and continuing on duty throughout the whole of Monday, Tuesday, and part of yesterday, these gentlemen have been of the greatest use in preserving and effecting the restoration of property. ”

“ At this moment, however,—that is about two or three minutes before the service was to commence, and close upon six o’clock,—the (illegible text) ole of the north-western range of galleries, (illegible text) the right side of the pulpit, extending to ra (illegible text) more than fifty feet in length, yielded to (illegible text) unusual pressure of the multitude it supported, and fell, with a tremendous crash, upon the (illegible text) more hapless assemblage underneath. ”