The Sun.
London, England, 1856-10-21 00:00:00

ANOTHER ACCOUNT.

A gentleman who was present in the hall on
Sunday evening, thus describes the scene :—I oc-
cupied one of the front seats in the second gallery,
when, during the second prayer, the first symptoms
of confusion were manifested. This appeare I to
me to be occasioned by an intentional rush of some
person or persons who were at the side of the plat-
form, causing in au instant a great deal of confu-
sion, and inducing the congregation to rise from
their seats in all parts of the building. A moment
after, and the cry of " Fire !" was raised by a
voice in the body of the hall ; added to which a
cry of " The .bells ! the bells !" and in an instant,
and in the greatest confusion, there was a simul-
taneous rush of the immense body of people for the
doors and windows. Seeing the minister appa-
ruly but little moved and using his utmost
eitorts to induce the people to remain in their
seats, both by voice and gesture, I jumped on my
seat and called out " A false alarm," " Keep your
seats ;" but terror had so seized upon the major
part of the congregation that an individual voice
had but little chance of gaining a hearing. It was
endeavoured to attract the attention and to calm
the fears of the multitude by singing a verse of the
hymn that had already been sung, but, unfortu-
nately, only a few of those who were on the plat-
form were able to join. I then made for the stair-
case, partly to see the cause of the confusion which
had originated below, and partly, also, that it might
be safer in case anything should prove to be
wrong. Upon descending the staircase a horrible
sight presented itself—the balustrade had already
been thrown down and lay broken in fragments at
the bottom ; a great number of people, men, wo-
men, and children, lay huddled in a heap on the
second landing, completely blocking up the stair-
case, and causing numbers who were still crowd-
ing down either to fall upon them, or in their
fright to jump down the opening caused by the
Luken balustrade. The police were unable for
some minutes to ascend the staircase to render as-
sistance, and were obliged to content themselves
by calling to the people not to jump down ; while
a number of the congregation above were appa-
rently undecided what to attempt. After dragging
back by main force several who appeared deter-
mined to jump down, calling out at the same time
to those who were still crowding to keep back, we
succeeded in opening a window close by ; desiring
two or three to jump out, and two or three others
to assist inside, we passed them into the open air
—three quite dead to all appearance, and many
others so severely injured that in some cases, no
doubt, death was the result. After collecting the
scattered articles of clothing I passed out, thank-
ing God for my own safety.
There appeared to be no police in the upper part
of the building. Had there been, the accident on
the staircase might surely have been prevented.

(From the Times.)
On Sunday night 20,000 persons went to an,
immense Music-hall in what were lately the Surrey
Zoological-gardens, to hear a great preacher. The
hall was neow, and the preacher was young,—they
say only twenty-five. His hearers have outgrown
his own chapel, and outgrown Exeter-hall, till the
Strand was all in a commotion every Sunday
evening, with crowds looking wistfully at a
notice which told them in large letters that the
place would hold no more. So they are building
him a place somewhere to hold about 15,000, and
meanwhile they took the Surrey Music-hall for
four Sundays. It is a building with two or three
tiers of galleries—galleries inside, and balconies
outside, and all sorts of devices for hearers,
whether sitting or standing. It was built
for 10,000, but on this occasion it is said
that 12,000, or even 14,000, crammed into it,
while a large crowd besieged the doors, and a still
larger one the entrance of the gardens. Would
not any reasonable being have some misgiving as
to the consequences? Indeed, it appears as if
everybody had, and the misgiving itself produced
the consequences. There was au alarm ; no one
can say certainly how or from whom. It might be
a cry of "Fire," or " The roof," or the tinkling of
a bell ; but in a moment the vast assemblage was
in motion to the doors, rushing, screaming, tramp-
ling down one another, clogging the staircases,
breaking the balustrades, tumbling over to the
bottom, falling upon one another. By a merciful
Providence net six hundred, but only six, were
killed, and rather more seriously hurt. The
preacher kept his place, preaching, praying, -and
giving out psalms ; the surviving congregation res
turned to their seats ; the boxes for the new chapel
were rattled about, and the service concluded
almost as if nothing had happened ; and all the
consolation to the friends of half-a-dozen well-
dressed women, as they are described, is that at
least they perished in a religious act, while listen-
ing eagerly to what they believed the voice of
Heaven for the good of their souls.
Such incidents are not uncommon, though it is
not quite true to say that they cannot be helped,
and every fresh instance suggests fresh cautions.
A good many years ago, when St. Luke's, Chelsea,
was newly built, and thought a paragon of Gothic
architecture, there were floating rumours as to the
stability of its stone vaulting. It was a n%w
experiment ; the old secret was lost ; the paste-
board walls and light flying buttresses were
mistrusted. So one evening, after a charity
sermon, while the hymn was singing and the plate
was going round, the officials aloft thought the
congregation had gone out and let down the
chandeliers ; the people in the free seats made wav
for the falling galaxies in haste ; the benches were
overturned ; there was a cry " The roof, the roof;
in an instant all was confusion, noise, and dust, and
ono could only see that the whole congregation was
flying over the pews to the doors like leaves in
the autumn wind. Happily, the panic was more
on the ground than in the galleries, and by the
time the congregation had packed the passage so
closely that they could not getout they came to their
reason and returned to their places—not, however,
before the clergyman who had been reading the
prayers, after a vain attempt to open the door of the
reading-desk, vaulted clean over it. St. Luke's has
acquired a character for stability loy this time, and
so, it is to be hoped, the Surrey Music-hall will in
the end. But let not the warning pass wholly away.
All the wonder is that, the alarm once given,, the
results were not worse on Sunday night. There
might have been a real downfall, visible though in-
significant, a flake of falling flame, an explosion of
gas; itnd then what would the 12,000 people have
done How many would have gone over the bal-
conies, or been jammed fifty deep in the staircases?
A. public building ought to be constructed with
special regard to these fearful contingencies, and
under the Metropolitan Building Act of course the
Surrey Music-ball must be supposed to have ful-
filled the requisite conditions. The means of exit,
however, it now appears, were not sufficient for the
case of a panio, and the balustrades could not r3S)I;
the pressure or the force applied to them. If the
conditions of the act were fulfilled, they are not
themselves stringent enough, and ought to be
amended, or, at least, some authority given to the
surveyors to profit by the warning. It is a very
common remark, and one which we have made in
this place before, that the entrances, staircases, and
passages of our places of public assemblage, our
theatres, music-halls, and even our churches, are
not on a scale commensurate with the internal ac-
commodation ; and that they are not equal to those
of similar buildings abroad, or, as far as we have
ecmipants of
the means of knowing, of ancient amphitheatres.
example,
For it takes a quarter of an hour for the
the reserved seats in Exeter-hall
to
get out of the labyrinth into the open air.
In case
of actual,
fire, how many of them could
torro.
of orcalcined
b
ever re-appear, except in the
peet. In the event ones Not many, we
ofsus-
a mere alarm the exit
would soon be stopped .
wouldnecessity, and stand theirve to make a virtue of
with fifty dead bodies,
and tl.e rest would
g ry
ng round unhurt. But
it is not creditable to
this c
run such terrible risks. Gambling
with life is
country that we should
r
worse than gambling with mons
- When Covent-
trarden was burnt tare were On
the falling beams ;au hour y 200 people under
or two before there
were several thousand.
Mty not Mr. Spurgeon also condescend to take
a hint from this untoward event ? There are limits
to all things, even to hearers. Est modus in rebus •
aunt certi denique fines. The human voice is
limited. Stentor himself could not be heard by
the whole human race. On certain occasion-8
20,000 people are assembled in St. Paul's, but they
do not hear, or expect to hear; on the contrary,
as soon as the preacher appears in the pulpit they
take out sandwiches, buns, brandy-flasks, and
newspapers. No church in the metropolis holds
3,001, though some have a name for more. There
is something, then, very ambitious, to say the
least, in the attempt to have five times as many