The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-18 00:00:00

it arrests or the gases which it absorbs in transitu. A mass of charcoal
through which a stream of sewage water has been filtered would become
an innocuous and most valuable fertilizer of land. It would be curious if
in this article of household use we should find the means of conquering
what has become, in metropolitan acceptation, the great difficulty of the
day. Nay, it might be more than conquest. The enemy we have dreade d
so much. and deemed so invincible, which invaded our homes, destroyed
our comfort, and threatened pestilence in our city, may be converted into
a source of wealth and an element of prosperity. Such things have
happened befbre—and may again. Let the prospect stimulate the activi-
ties of the Metropolitan Board, who, sooth to say, appear somewhat in need
of encouragement.

Mr. FRITH has depicted the humours of an English crowd, on Rams-
gate sands, or the "hill" at Epsom. With a few shadows, introduced
for the sake of effect, the whole scene is one of mirth and serenity—every-
thing is gay, jolly, and riant. Gather the same crowd within four wislls,
startle them by some casual cry of alarm, and Miciimm ANGELO himself
would fail adequately to portray the horrors of the tragedy that must
ensue. Yet Englishmen—or Englishwomen and children—are not
naturally cowards. Within Lucknow intrenchments, and upon the decks
of wrecked ships, they have faced danger in its most terrible forms with
unflinching courage. But if packed in some edifice, be it a church,
theatre, concert-room, or lecture-hall, frequent experience has shown that
the slightest cause will produce an indiscriminate and murderous panic.
Few, if any, pause to ascertain whether the danger be real or fancied, but
the whole throng rush pell-mell to the points of exit, crushing and
trampling upon one another in the blindness of their terror, and in their
haste to escape producing and suffering far worse consequences than would
probably have occurred if the apprehended casualty had actually over-
taken them. This is the real danger of crawded assemblages. The worst
of it is that it cannot be obviated by any preliminary precautions. Most
careful watch, for example, may be kept against fire—nay, the building
may be made actually fireproof—and nevertheless a single exclamation
uttered in joke or by mistake will spread alarm among thousands, and
induce results as deplorable as those which occurred on Monday night in
the " Surrey Music-hall" at Sheffield. On that occasion there was no
real peril. The investigations at the inquest are only commenced,
but enough has transpired to show that no symptoms had occurred more
formidable than the momentary flash caused by the ignition of some gas
from a leaky pipe. This, however, was enough to occasion a " stampedo"
among the terror-stricken crowd, in which six persons lost their lives and
several hundreds their self-control, and even their common sense, in the
overmastering instinct of self-preservation. The intensity of fright
induced in some minds may be estimated by the fact that among the
victims was a young man who actually threw himself from a window in
his anxiety to escape where no danger pursued, and was killed by the fall.
We hare here a phenomenon, frequent in recurrence, terrible in its results,
and invariable in its incidents. Scenes like those of Monday night are
frequently repeated, under circumstances very slightly varying, but with
an alarming probability that on the next performance the sufferers may be
numbered by hundreds instead of units. Nor can the evil be remedied by
taking precautions against practical danger. A false alarm is nearly, if
not quite, as calamitous as a true one. Terror is contagious, and men
thronged into masses, under the influence of fear or rage cease to be
reasonable animals. And that alarms, either true or false, should
be propagated in a multitude of individuals so placed is just
as likely as an explosion in a firework manufactory. The pro-
fessional dealers in averages, by a little investigation, would under-
take to compute the chances of such an eventuality, and establish
as a result not less regular than any deduced front the " Carlisle
Tables," that if a theatre be filled chockfull every night, once in so many
weeks or months there will be an alarm among the audience followed by a
panic rush to the doors. In the invariability of this result we find the
proper remedy for the evil clearly indicated. It is a case in which the
Government is called upon to interfere, and fully justified in the most
peremptory interference. When lives are sacrificed through the inade-
quacy and unscientific construction of the exit avenues, the Executive has
a right to demand that the want should be supplied. The very knowledge
that ready means of escape were available would often entirely prevent any
panic from arising among theatrical audiences, and in any case prevent the
occurrence of serious catastrophes. Yet this obvious precaution has
hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of the new Covent-
garden Opera-house we hardly know of one single house of public enter-
tainment in London where the approaches are even decently adjusted to
the magnitude of the human tide intended to flow and ebb through them.
They all seem constructed on the bad model of Old London-bridge. On
nights of any extra attraction it is difficult to get in with comfort or
safety. If a panic broke out inside it would be impossible for any but a
few luckily-placed persons to get out ; and should a conflagration really
occur—a contingency which we have reason to know is not very impro-
bable—the survivors would have to relate that, while a hundred or
two struggled and crushed one another in the doorway, the great
majority of the audience were burnt to death as helplessly as if they had
been immured in some " chambre ardente." The Government looks rather
closely after our private edifices. Official inspectors take care, before
allowing any house to be built, that the drains are scientifically con-
structed, the foundations properly laid, the party-walls of sufficient thick-
ness, and, if any manufacturing operations are to he carried on, that the
furnaces consume their own smoke. While all this is done, with heavy
penalties to insure obedience to the Act, it is surely competent upon the
Executive to provide that when a house of more public character is erected,
into which it is avowedly intended to invite some hundreds or thousands
of her Majesty's subjects, proper and sufficient means of exit should be pro-
vided so as to prevent the lieges from being entrapped into a place where,
in case of accident, they must either perish in their seats or run. the risk of
death or dismemberment in their endeavour to escape.