The Sun.
London, England, 1856-03-06 00:00:00

TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF COVENT-
GARDEN THEATRE BY FIRE.

LATEST PARTICULARS.—(This Day.)

On visiting the scene of the late terrible conflagration
this morning, we found the firamen still occupied in
throwing water upon the black and smoking ruins.
Precautions have been taken to temporarily secure the
wall of the theatre facing Hart-street, by the erection of
immense props of timber; but so dangerous is the place
at the present moment, that no person is allowed to pass
down the street on any pretence whatever.

irly this morning the Duke and Duchess of Wel-
lington, the Duke of Bedford, and the Marquis of Lans-
downe, and various other distinguished personages, vi-
sited the spot and surveyed the scene from Princes-
place, in company with Mr. Ponteau. A great number
of the visitors wished to proceed into the theatre, or
rather within the walls, but the heat still contained in
the debris prevented anything like an approach being
made. Through the exertions of Mr. Ponteau the whole
of the books and accounts of the theatre have been saved,
also the deed and engagement boxes. The books of Mr. A.
Harris, the stage manager of the Italian Opera, have also
we are gratified to announce, been preserved. These
books contained the whole of the " getting up" of all
-the operas that have been produced since the commence-
ment of the Italian Opera, and the loss of which would
have been incalculable, as no amount of money could
have replaced them had they been destroyed. From in-
formation received from Mr. Norton, the principal muci
cal librarian to the establishment, we can state that the
entire score of 43 operas, immense quantities of ballet
music have been consumed. The property of M. Jullien,
consisting of music, drums, gongs, &c., have also shared
the same fate. The English library, which had some
time ago been removed to the houses in Princes-place,
has been preserved, but the prompt dramatic copies,
which amount to several thousand books, have all
perished. It was at one time thought that a young lady
named Hamilton had perished in the flames, indeed, the
family had given up all hope, but it has been discovered
that the poor young lady, by some means or
other, got conveyed to the Feathers public
house, in Mart-street, where she remained for some time
We believe she has sustained no injury. The vestiges of
the property saved from the fire has been placed for
safety in the yard adjoining the police-station in Bow-
street, and consists merely of a few chairs, several large
dressing glasses, clocks, some broken tables, and a quan-
tity of parcels of papers. Of course no examination o
the documents has yet taken placs, so it is impossible to
say what these parcels ma.y contain.
Up to two o'clock Mr. Gye had not arrived in Lon-
don, although he was momentarily expected. It has
been said that this gentleman was staying at Vienna,
but at the moment the fire waslraging in London he was
in Paris.

The buildings belonged to four or five Proprietors, who
bad issued shares to upwards of a hundred gentlemen ;
but as it was not insured they lose everything, and the
shares, which were till yesterday worth hundreds of
pounds, are now not worth the paper upon which they
are written.

FURTHER PARTICULARS.
As to the origin of the calamity, nothing is known at
present. Time the fire broke out in tke carpenter's shop
there can be little doubt, but how or by what means,
there is reason to fear will remain a mystery. The
carpenters' shop in this theatre extended, with the
single exception of a comparatively small space de
voted to the scene-painters, from one end of the building
to the other, and lay between. the erneonental ceiling and
the roof of the theatre. Thrcugh an open space in the
floor of this atelier the central chandelier was lighted,
and the place itself was generally filled with materials
of the lightest and mist combustible character. It
was the duty of one of the firemen to aec)mrany th e
gasman when he ascended into the carpenter'e shop to light
the central chandelier, and this office on Tuesday night
fell upon Castles. The latter says he went with one of
the gasmen in the service of Mr. Payne (mho has the di•
rection of the lighting cf the theatre), and that, after
completing this duty, they tested the safety of their
lighting rod by pouring over the wool at the end of the
rod a small quantity of spirits of naptha. The rod was
then left suspended over the basin of the chandelier, and
Castles and the gasman returned down stairs by the
light of a glass lantern. This was shortly before seven
o'clock in the evening, at which hour both these men
declare ad was perfectly safe. At four o'clock in the
morning one of the fly men " had occasion to ascend to
the second "flies," and even then he detected no smell
of smoke or indication of danger of any kind. When
the two men entered this place, they were nearly suffo-
cate! by dense black smoke before they had proceeded
many yards. Castles firew himself on his hands and
knees, and endeavoured to craw! towards a smouldering
heap which he observei near the centre of the workshop.
The smoke was, however, too much for him, arid he
was compelled to make a speedy retreat, without having
been able to open the fire mains on this flier. De-
eceeding to the next " flies," he succeeded in turn-
ing on the mains, but before lie could fix the hose
the descending, fire from the workshop above overtook
him, and drove him to the next '• flies." The iiemlnent
peril was now evident to him. He saw that the fire
had obtained a mastery which could not be controlled ;
ar d his next step was to unhitch and cut away those
parts of the scenery most likely to be affected by the
increasing fire.
The precautions a,lopted ageing, fire in this theatre
were necessarily of the ino-t stringent nature ; for sub-
sequently to its re-erection after being burnt down in
1808, no insurance office would issue a policy upon P.
To reassure the public against the alarm then created,
the architect took pains to erect a tank on the roof of
the theatre, calculated to hold 18 tons of water, which,
by means of double mains on every floor, could be thrown
upon any part of the building at a moment's notice.
Four firemen were appointed to watch arid guard the
theatre
.against fire. It was their duty to go over every
part of tire building, and to see that the fire-mains
were always accessible and always charged. This
arrangement has continued up to the present time,
and of the four men on duty last night, one of
them hal been etosched to the theatre for nearly 40
yearn With all these precautions, it may naturally be
:asked why such a calamity was permitted to take place.
The answer is plain. Instead of %,isiting every Fart of
the theatre as was their duty, the firemen on this occa-
sion cordined themselves to the more genial atmosphere
of the stage ; and it is a fiat that the first discovery of
a fire in the roof was made by one of their body, James
Castles, while engaged in conversation with another
attacks of the theatre upon the stage.
It seems generally admitted that for some time past
there has been an unusual escape of gas in the house.
Mr. Sioman, who held the offiee of machinist arid car-
pouter at this theatre, has been eo forcibly impressed
with the danger arising therefrom that he had actually
waited upon two or three of the proprietors, Mr. Sur-
man and Mr. Robinson among others, and re-
presented to them that if something was not done be
feared the theatre would some day be burnt down. Mr.
Shuman has also called the attention of the fireman to
the same circumstance, but nothing seems to have been
done. Whether the fire originated from a gas leakage
or not is of course uncertain, but in the absence of satis-
factory information on the point it may be desirable to
state all the facts.
There is another remarkable circumstance in connec-
tion with the supply of gas to this theatre. It is a fact
that no less than three cempardes have mains laid on to
this house—the Imperial, the Equitable, and the Lon-
don. When Mr. Anderson assumed the lesseeship he at
once changed from the Imperial to the London C nn-
pany, and there were not wanting yesterday persons of
competent judgment who pronounced this to be a dan-
gerous practice in any theatre.
Had the catastrophe occurred in any other part of the
house it is probable its origin might have been attributed
to another cause, inasmuch as during the bat there were
at one period as many .83 a couple of hundred persons
smoking cigars in every part of the theatre.
In this particularly trying scene several persons ex-
hibited instances of great courage and coolness. Mr.
Anderson devoted himself to assisting Mr. Ponteau, the
private secretary to Mr. Gye, in saving certain valuable
documents and papers from Mr. Gye's private room, a
labour in which Mr. E. T. Smith, lessee of Drury-lane
Theatre, was observed rendering the most energetic aid.
Mr. Francis, the printer to the theatre, and Mr. Nim-
mo, were also especially prominent in their assistance.
But the crown of merit on this occasion belongs to a
humble individual named Burgess, the bill-sticker to the
establishment, who, at the imminent risk of his life,
pushed his way into the burning building and brought
back with him several valuable books and papers. Mr.
Hingston, secretary to Mr. Andersen, also exerted him-
self manfully.
In Prince's-plaes, the court-yard by which her Ma-
jesty entered the house, one attempt at salvage was suc-
cessful. The knick-knacks appertaining to the Wizard s
tricks were in an apartment very near to the stage door,
and these were in great part saved. A small quantity of
furniture, including his private piano, belonging to Mr.
Costa, was also rescued.
The value of the properties destroyed is something
fabulous. An approximate estimate may ho formed from
the fact that in mounting the several operas contained in
the repertoire of the theatre when under the management
of Mr. Delafield no less than 60,000 t. was expended, of
which the four operas of the " Prophhte," the
note," " Lucrezia Borgia," and "La Donna del Lego
cost 25,000/.
The valuable dramatic library belonging to the thea-
tre—unique of its kind—is gone in the general wreck.
The original MSS. of the "School for Scandal," the
" Miller and his Men," the opera of the "Slave," and
hundreds of other curious works were there preserved.
The armoury, containing more than one hundred suits,
and occupying a series of rooms, is wholly destroyed.
Four original pictures by Hogarth, representing the
Seasons, which hung upon the walls of M box oyes
priouvatd
e
room, within only a few paces of the ffice, cl
not be saved, so rapid was the progress of the fire.
It was an affecting incident to see poor Mr. Horton,
the music librarian, a well-known lover of his art, moved
even to tears at witnessing the loss of so many objects
whose precious value he was set well able to estimate.
The music library of the Royal Italian Opera contained
the score of no less than 23 operas, many of them writ-
ten by the composers themselves.
The only insurances known to e2iat conection with