FATAL FIRES IN THEATRES.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1032, 6 January 1882, Page 2

FATAL FIRES IN THEATRES.

[The "Argus."] The frightf ul loss of life which has attended the destruction by fire of the theatre in the Ring Strasse, at Vienna, shows that no precautions will prevent a tragedy of this kind when a panic takes possession of the minds of an endangered crowd. In the construe tion of the edifice which has just been burnt special pains appear to have been taken to provide for the easy and rapid egress of the audience in the event of such a casualty as that which has just happened and, from all we can earn, the building could have been readily emptied in a few minutes, , nevertheless, it is deplorable that under the influence of panic an excited crowd rushed wildly to the doors; the gas was sudddenly extinguished, increasing the terror of the frenzied fugitives ; men, women, and children were knocked down in the confusion, blocking up the avenues of escape, and more than T>oo lives were sacrificed to this temporary epidemic of fear. On the 13th of. January, 1865, the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, caught fire during the performance and numerous lives were lost, but the precise number was never ascertained. On the sth of February, 1876, while a matinee entertainment was being given at Robinson's Opera house in Cincinnati, for a charitable purpose, in which GOO children took part as performers, somebody, through mischief or ignorance, raised an nlarni oi % live on the exhibition of a red light, incidental to the entertainment. The theatre was densely packed with women and cJiildren, who succumbed to the customary panic. The weak were knocked down and trampled on by the strong. Ten persons wen 1 killed outright, and hundreds of others were more or less injured. In the Chinee theatre, P-rm Francisco, a few weeks before the destruction of the Brooklyn Theatre, a piece o£ mottinj;' wrv> jv<-it!entrJly set alightto. Tho cry cf c- ihc"vas raised, a

rush ensued, and seventeen of t c audience were crushed to death, and numbers of others seriously hurt. It is creditable to the courage and self-pos-session of the Chinese actors to add that they calmly proceeded with the performance until the flames were extinguished.

In Paris the Grand Opera-house has been burnt down four times, and the Theatre Nicolet, afterwards the Gaiete, the Odeon, the Gymnase Enfantin, and the Durant twice ; and nintoen other theatres have shared the same fate. Warned by these calamities in France, the municipal authorities in the neighboring kingdom of Belgium have stringent regulations for the protection of the public, in conformity with the report of a commission appointed by the Burgomaster and Echevins of Brussels, and including the chief commissioner of police, the captain of fire men, the gas enginner, the manager of the waterworks, and the head of the department of fine arts for the capital.