The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-03 00:00:00

DISASTROUS !FIRE AT CONSTANTINOPLIL

UPWARDO OF ONE HUNDRED LIVE LOP.
(From the Levant Herald, Feb. 22.)
By far the most terrible calamity which has
shocked the public mind of Coastantinople for 30 yean past
happened at Galata, on Monday night. Shortly after U
o'clock on the night in question, • fire broke out in
one of the wings of the Boman catholic nave= of St.
Benoit, and, sotwithetandi•g the utter abases of vied,
the flames rapidly spread to the adjoining apartments,
sad thence to the thickly cloistering hours outside the
*anent enclosure. Shortly alter midaight • body of
sours sixty tolounibojets, with four engines, had stationed
themselves along the outside wall of the high stone
banditti in the corner of the wave= qua irangle
considering themeless sheltered by the wall from the
flame within, and being well placed from that point for
playing on the wood= buildings •lrsdy 'gaited on the
other side. The aware= safety of the spot bad also col-
noted ea and around it several of the polleeasen and spec-
tators, of whom, as is usual, • large *toed had by this time
gathered from all parts of Pen and Galata. Suddenly. and
without even a warning amok, the eastern and southern
walls of this lofty building toppled outwards, literally meet-
ing over the doomed crowd below lila that earn of • bean-
ie( wave, and burying ruder their &brie all four at
the engine mentioned, with the whole of their
crews, and • lame numbs, of the police and on-looking
crowd. Not • man who had stood within the fatal shadow
of the fallen walls escaped. Almost simultaneously, •
portico of the WIISSOCO wall fell over on a small, densely-
inhabited house outside the convent limit., and, crushing
through its root, killed, it is said, eight of ite inmates, who
were engaged in endeavouring to teems their effects. Foe
a time this terrible disaster paralysed all efforta to check
the conflagration outside the convent, and as the remaining
wall threatened momentarily to give way too, no attempt
was made to reach the mama= and dying, whom the rune
of the other walls had only part hid from sight. Of them
mug were sees to make agonising bat ineffectual acne to
extricate themselves from the charred mama of brisk and
wood which only half-entombed them, sad then gradually
to oases the vain straggle as suflocatio• or other cause of
death did its work. This part of the same was harrowing
beyond any power of description.
The vigorous play of the ships' engine from the inside of
the convent quadrangle, aided by the calmness of the night,
bad in the sometime cheek= the spread of flames to the
western wing of the building; not, however, before the
small circular dome and roof of the chapel on the one side,
and the donnikeies of the female pupils and storerooms on
the other, had been seriously damaged. Outside, the fire
was virtually =opposed, the disasters to their fellows adder
the convent wall having apparently unnerved the other
Wow:skims oa the ground. There was, besides,
an almost complete want of water. It was not, there-
fore, till the dam had burned themselves out on all
sides to the gape made in their path by the pulling
down of distant houses, that the conlegration may be said
to have been got under. This was about 7 a.m., by which
time, besides the damage done to the convent, in all forty.
two houses and four shops bad been destroyed. Bet for
the providential =mace of wind, however, this would have
been but a trifling instalment of the wideepread devuta-
tioa that must have occurred, for, had the flames spread
down on the one side towards Toph•seh, or on the other
atoned the old dyke higher up, the conflagration must
have spread is the ow direction to far beyond the Teal-
tottani, and in the case from the Teke to the Bawl=
Palace.

The total number of victims to this great calamity le
believed to exceed a towelled. Up till yesterday at 4 p. 01.,
42 had been dog out of the debris, whoa the work wag dis-
continued in rweeequasce of the bricks and broke, reel
timber bearer the bar of the fake walle, being too hot to
permit of further exhumations. Ageoept the killed is
Ibrahim Bey, the thief of the Galata
Local charity, we ere glad to be able to'report, bee already
bestirred itself actively es beard( el the suawiviag suffocate ;
and a special appeal will be Mall le the easuabere of ear
owe comernueity is the Embsoey Chapel, after ecersheg
service is Sunday next.

The International and Electric Telegraph Com-
pany have padded their aril far mewsges by the Indo-
European line. To Begins the charge for 20 words,
iodate' address and sigeatare, is 21. 10a. ed.; to Miffs-
slum 41.10166 d.; to Cent en, 51. Bs.; le British Bersah,
51. 54.; and to the three Prediasise, Esehey, Calcutta, ,
and Madras, 51. la. For sash &Mideast 1L words or I
fraistios of 10 words owe-half of than rates mast be Woad.
A Brunswick letter says :—" The duke has awed
nothing whatnot flew the ire by which his palms bps
been destroyed, not snow a bat ; be had to pendesse see we
I the fallowieg racist. with sews bail Urn awl a east.
All the clothe asid 'relates fir pawed is. presemsl by
We data in ha sperhiteng was hareit..