The Express.
London, England, 1865-02-01 00:00:00

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Popo% most he at tem Odloo. le, llouveztootroet, by Two
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LON DUN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1.

THa present pantomimic season, if it has not
been so fruitful in deaths from fire on the stage
as the season of 1864, has been far more fatal to
London and country theatres. A short time back
we were called upon to chronicle the total destruc-
tion of the Theatre Royal Edinburgh, and yester-
day the news came tons that the Surrey Theatre
—a house associated with the DAVIDUE% JERROLD%
08BALDISTONS and others for more than half a
century—was burnt down at the hour when the
audience usually leave the building. Partly owing
to the fact that the audience, originally scanty,
bad begun to leave the house before the alarm of
fire was raised, and partly owing to the admirable
conduct of a few pantomimists and labourers on
the stage, the whole of the theatre, before
and behind the curtain, was cleared with-
out the slightest accident. The Clown,
according to the moat trustworthy ac-
counts, tint observed the fire, and behaved with
courage and coolness ; the stage-manager addressed
a few sensible words to the audience ; the audience
listened to the stage-manager, and acted with
praiseworthy calmness ; and the few members of
the company who knew the danger which threa-
tened the many women and children engaged in
the pantomime were left to assist their fellow-
workers. How well they performed their task
has been recorded in numerous reports, and many
instances of personal bravery and thoughtfulness
have doubtless escaped the reporters. We have
beard of one man who went back amongst the

flame", and cut three children out of the machi-
nery in which they were fastened as cherubs to
assist in the final fairy scene. Hundreds of ballet-
girls, imps, and sprites were hurried shrieking in
their flimsy dresses to a place of safety, and the
theatre had hardly been cleared when the roof fell
with the chandelier, and the whole place was a
gaping, smoking ruin.
Amongst the twenty-five licensed theatres, in-
cluding the two great Opera-houses, which London
possessed before this fire, the Surrey Theatre has
played an important part. It never adopted the
system so generally practised by what we may
call the local theatres, of lowering the admission
fee of the pit to sixpence, the gallery to three-
pence, and the boxes to one shilling, but reso-
lutely maintained the old tariff of prices which used
to regulate the so-called " minor" houses. In po-
sition, it occupied a place half-way between the
Victoria and the Adelphi, subsisting mainly on
French melodiama, with an occasional season
of legitimate plays. The house just de-
stroyed, though altered in many respects by
OSBALDISTON and SHEPHERD about seven-
teen years ago, was substantially built in 1806,
replacing the old Royal Circus, started by Hunan
and DIRDIN, in 1782, in opposition to AsiLey,
which was burnt down in 1805. Sixty years is a
long life for a London theatre, if we are to believe
in the premiums charged by the insurance offices,
and the Surrey Theatre was, of course, far from
being a model of construction. It was broad and
flat, and preserved many of the characteristics of
the circus from which it sprang : its stage-front
before the curtain was embellished with doors and
windows—an old-fashioned peculiarity which is
now confined to Sadler's Wells ; its ceiling was
a mess of lath and plaster, in the midst of which
was embedded a heavy chandelier ; and above
this was a " painting-room"— a fruitful
source of fires in theatres—in which was stored
a stock of inflammable materials. The floor of
this room, if we are to believe those who were
very familiar with the place, was thin end inse-
cure, and the constant heat from the chandelier was
enough to bake a much thicker substance. The
origin of the fire will, we suppose, form the "abject
of a legal investigation, but we shall probably only
anticipate the verdict of a jury if we state that it
arose from a red-hot ceiling. That sense of op-
pression which an audience often feels at a central
theatre, and that feeling of sickness which a stray
visitor more often feels at a local theatre, are
always caused by bad ventilation, and bad ventila-
tion allows the generation of extreme heat in
a part of the building which is least
constructed to withstand it. A heavy,
costly chandelier, which often interferes with