The Express.
London, England, 1864-02-11 00:00:00

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WHERE CAN WE MEET AFTER THE
PAN TOMDID4
My dear 'Wow I gentlemen sup at EVANSS, Covent -garden.

Vie eVPreoo*

TO 001tRESPONDECTE.

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Paper, must be at the aloe. 10, Bouvoliteetweek by Two
o'clock on the day of publication.

coVIINT-OARDZW.

TRW ITERnio, BRE STOOPS TO CONQUER. Maws.
W. H. Welt', IL Coni, G. Parroo. sad W. Minima • Mom L.
pyna and A. H ilea —Conductor_ Hr. A. Mcßae—And Wool:wain
of ST. GEORGE AND Till DRAGON.—Coramonoi

IIAYILASKIT.

Trio Bowen, LITTIIDAISY.—SHE STOOPS TO CON.
QUE tt. Mews. Buoksione, Chippendale, Howe, and Gordon •
Mesdames Angel, Filawilliam, Snowdon.—And LINO A.11,1111:14-
Mr. Compton Mesdames L KW.T, Wright. Lindley. Z.komar.

PLUICSIFS.

Tars Eviamm DONHA DlLiA.—Aad ILARLDICIN
LITTLE TOW TIME= Maras. Beytern, Cat cut. ♦. and C.
Lecleroy. Bunn/ and Pos. Naylor. and Canino;
Mesdaroni Barnett. ♦daas, sad Howard.

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TRIO VIM% THB ÜBT CHILD. Mr. Wlddieerab and
tem P. Loden:Q.—Bill DllllO.lO. a lore Story. trews.
Pechter. Brougham, Imery, aeries. and Jordan : Mager
Kate Terry, Lorene, and Mammal:, and MN. La.

aIL/TANNLI.

Spa KvisBBi. HICKORY. -DICKORY DOCK. Mn
8. Lao and dnt•rate Pantozolulsto.—The Marvels of Pon.
-THR GRRAT GHOST KlFlCT.—outhar and Bertrand.
—The Tery loontabi..-And MY LORD MLLCOMS.

FLOE WAS= AT maim RIUDOZ
Tim DAT Waste*. A. .Alesustaa Al
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LONDON, TRURSDAY, FEBRUARY U.

IT is not surprising that the Low) CHAMBIALAIR
should have seized the opportunity presented by
his recent conference with the theatrical managers
on another subject, to bring before them the exist-
ing provision for ingress and egress at the various
theatres of the metropolis. The subject is one of
the very gravest practical urgency in relation not
only to theatres and other places of public enter-
tsinment, but to churches, chapels, lecture-rooms,
popular halls—to every building in fact where
crowds of people are in the habit of assem-
bling, or may be at intervals convened
for special purposes. It is perfectly notorious
that in some of the most celebrated of these
places the means of ingress and egress are of the
worst possible description, being not only miserably
narrow and tortuous, but in number wholly insuf-
ficient to the requirements of the building. The
subject has been discussed again and again, and
as the evil is, at best, only very partially corrected,
it is still as necessary as ever that public attention
should be directed to it, and especially that no
opportunity should be lost of impressing its gra-
vity and importance afresh on the minds of those
who, in this particular, are bound as managers or
proprietors of places of public resort to make ade-
quate provision for the public safety. The re-
cent catastrophe in Chili conveys on this head a
warning so terrible that, had it occurred nearer
home, the lesson would have been repeated
trumpet-tongued through every avenue of public
feeling and expression, until it had expressed it-
self in a practical shape on all who are in any way
responsible for the entrances and exits bc-
longing to our chief places of public re-
sort. Had the tragedy been near enough to
be generally felt, its teaching must in this
way have impressed the most careless and indif-
ferent, and all would have agreed in considering
it the height of suicidal folly, something like cri-
minal infatuation, indeed, which might at any
moment produce such horrible and agonising results.
It is, no doubt, quite true that in the Church of La
Companis, at Santiago, the fire spread with extra-
ordinary rapidity owing to the mass of combustible
materials employed in the festive decoration
of the building ; but, notwithstanding this,
there seems every reason to believe that
the enormous sacrifice of life might have
been prevented had the means of egress been at
all proportioned to the size of the building. Here
was a church containing between three and four
thousand people provided with only three doors—
one large one in the middle and two small ones
arranged on either side—and of these only one,
the larger, was available at the time the fire
broke out, the side doors only opening half way,
and being obstructed with screens, having proved
practically useless. Under these circumstances
the catastrophe that ensued was inevitable. The
first rush of the terror-stricken crowd must have
effectually blocked up the only means of exit,
and of the whole three thousand not three
hundred succeeded in escaping from the building.
The work of destruction appears to have been I
nearly completed in the short space of a quarter
of an hour, but had the church possessed half .r-
-dozen
good-sized doors in different parts it miglt
easily have been emptied in half that time.
Now the fact is, that in many of our most
popular and crowded places of public resort—
theatres, churches, halls—we are continually ex-
posed to a danger of precisely the same
sort ; and the only wonder, perhaps, is that
our persistent neglect of the simplest and
moat essential precautions for securing the public
safety has not before now brought upon us some
calamity equally heartrending. The practical
question is whether we are to be made wise in
time by the experience of others, or wait to
be taught by some calamity of overwhelming
magnitude happening to ourselves. Hitherto, it
must be confessed that our progress in a matter so
essential to the public safety has been sufficiently
slow. It was only after upwards of seventy youths
and maidens had been stilled or crushed to death
in almost as many seconds on the stairs of the
Glasgow Theatre that we learned to adopt
the simple precaution of making the doors
of public places open outwards as well as
inwards, and though since then there have been
occasional losses of life and aerie= injuries of
limb in the attempts of a crowd to rush, under
momentary panic, from some public building ill
provided with means of exit, we have not yet
learned to provide for such an emergency. We
still go on erecting churches and halls of vast
proportions, capable of accommodating thousands,
but provided with means of egress not only
wretchedly insufficient for the crowding
incident to any sudden alarm, but so
constructed that they would almost of necessity
in such a case increase the general confusion and

TEM

aggravate the common danger. jis soma of th%
finest new churches, for example, the main do
are are not only few and small, but emourabered •
either side with obstacles that would inevitably en-
tangle a panic-stricken crowd, and fearfully aug-
ment their sufferings. In these oases the door in
on the inside fenced with a screw, as was the
case with the side doors of the Santiago church,
while externally it is liarricadoed by a pen-like
porch, where those Wfio bad escaped from the
building might stile exposed alo the danger
of being crushed or trampled out of life.
In some of the deatres, and we believe
in several of the , that are now so
popular, and that are nightly crowded to excess,
the means of ingress and egress are, if possible,
still worse. As smoking is allowed and universally
practised in these halls, and matches or " spills "
are constantly thrown in • lighted state upon the
floor, the danger from fire, or from an alarm of
fire, so far from hting imaginary or remote, is
always real and imminent. In some of our older
and larger places of public assembly the pro-
vision made for the entrance and exit of the
large crowds that frequent them is notoriously so
defective that in case of panic the results of
this continued neglect would in all probability be
I most appalling. How long is this state of things
to continue t Surely we have had warnings
enough, and might begin now to turn them to
practical account, without waiting for some
catastrophe greater than any that has yet
occurred. If any accident were to happen in
Exeter-hall, for example, its present system of
approaches could not survive a week, but would
of necessity be altered so as to meet the require-
ments of the public safety without any further
delay. But why need we wait for any fresh
and sharper teaching, with the tragedy of
Santiago before us t Why not adopt at once some
simple rule as to the number and size of the
entrances and exits of all places of public resort
in some proportion to their containing capacity,
and having provided some such rule of public
safety, see that it is respected in practice I

THE PUBLIC INCOME AND EXPENDI-

This morning a return was published of the gross
public income and expenditure of the United King-
dom in the year ending Mat December last. The
total revenue was 70,433,6201. 54. 9d. The total
lordinary expenditure was 66,910,987/. lls. 103.,
which would show an excess of income to the
amount of 3,522,6321. 13s. 11d. ; but 900,000/. is
to be deducted from this for expenses of fortifica-
tions, so that the available surplus amounts to
2,622,6321. 13s. 11d. The balances in the ex-
chequer on the 31st of December last amounted to
7,491,8131. 3a. 9d.