Clipping:Crowd control on the holiday
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| Date | Tuesday, June 3, 1884 |
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| Text | So much complaint and adverse criticism has been aimed at the management of the Boston club because of the apparent remissness of duty in handling the immense crowd at the afternoon game on :Decoration day that a statement should be made in justice to the directors. Anticipating an immense attendance at the game, an ample force of police officers to preserve order and assist in the seating of the spectators was applied for by the management and promised by the authorities, but so heavy a drain was made on the force by calls for officers in every direction, as is usual on all holidays, that the promise could not be fulfilled, and only a few officers were detailed and reached the grounds till the game was nearly over. When the sale of tickets had reached at the gate 9826, and there was apparently no end to the crowd pressing forward to see the game, President Soden and his associates on the board of directors ordered the sale to stop, and this was done. Two thousand and forty-nine tickets had been sold down town, and the holders were admitted as they presented themselves, making 11,875 people that paid for admission. When the outside spectators found no more tickets were to be sold, they scaled the fence by the hundred, and, in spite of all efforts to prevent them, thousands of people got inside and witnessed the game without paying a cent. The crowd proved to be a most stubborn one, and refused to obey the appeals to stand back so that the game could proceed. There was a spot of at least a hundred feet deep, between the rear of the spectators and the centre field fence, which was almost wholly unoccupied, and the spectators should have had wisdom enough to have filled this space, but this they did not do, and would not do so when requested. Had the force of officers asked for been supplied at the outset, the subsequent confusion would have been avoided. As it was, the directors claim that they did all they could do under the circumstances to make everything pass off without any disorder, and with a view of the convenience and comfort of their patrons. The police force on hand could have handled the crowd that were inside when the sale of tickets stopped, but it was those who swarmed over the fence that created the confusion. |
| Source | Boston Herald |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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