The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-04 00:00:00

first and the heaviest blow, that is to say, suppos-
ing, for argument sake, that the conspirators could
for a moment succeed in achieving their objects,
and changing the government of the country. But
they know little of the power or resources
of Great Britain, or the devotion and loyalty of
the ;vast majority of the inhabitants of the sister
kingdom, if they could for a moment suppose
that such a result was possible. No, we be-
lieve that the people of Ireland are faithful
subjects. There may be, as there are in every
land, exceptions to the rule men who, like
Simon Tappertit, fancy that it is a great thing
to be engaged in a conspiracy. We can almost
fancy the grocers' assistants and attorneys'
clerks swelling with even greater importance
than that assumed by the " three tailors of
Tooley-street," when planning a provisional
Government after the overthrow of the existing
dynasty, in which every one present was to take a
leading part. The drilling, too, the acquisition of
the goose-step, was doubtless another incitement;
but the great temptation of all was the fact
that the meetings were held at publichouses,
and that the leading members of the new Govern-
ment did not part without imbibing sundry modest
quenchers, which, if supplied at the expense of
the general body, were accepted with tenfold gra-
tification.

It may be thought that it would have been be-
neath the dignity of the Government to notice such
ridiculous and abortive demonstrations, but this is
a grave mistake. Treason is always infectious,
no matter how diluted may be its character, and
if prevention be better than cure, it is surely
far better to nip such a system in the
bud than to permit it to extend its rami-
fications, and to bring thousands of heed-
less persons within the meshes of the nets spread
for their reception. In doing so they have de-
served the thanks and gratitude of the entire
community. They have taught the salutary
lesson that, although there may be " honour
among thieves," there is none between con-
spirators. They have, by consigning a few
dangerous lunatics to the hulks or more probably
the treadmill, saved ten times their number from
the bullet, the bayonet, or, worst of all, the gallows.
We may fairly give the legal authorities credit for
believing that they would not have taken such steps
unless the actual facts fully warranted them in so
doing.

The frightful catastrophies resulting from some
mere idle panic, in a public building crowded to
inconvenience with a dense multitude collected
together in quest of excitement—religious, musical,
or theatrical—are latterly becoming rather fear-
fully multiplied. There was that destructive crush
in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, when Mr.
SPURGEON was preaching. There was that almost
equally destructive crush in the Music Hall at
Sheffield, when an explosion of gas, or the snap-
ping of a lucifer match, drove two or three hundred
people half distracted. There was, finally, only
the other afternoon, towards the evening of Boxing-
day, the terrible and fatal accident on the gallery
staircase of the Victoria Theatre, when sixteen
unfortunate boys and/ striplings, ranging from
eleven years of age to twenty, were suffocated for
the very same deplorable reason—the ignorant and
causeless panic of a large concourse of people. In
every instance of this kind that has furred—the
danger to the multitude lay altogether with them-
selves. Had they remained quietly in their places
when the rails of the gallery balustrade
cracked in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall
—when the glare of light ran along the gas-
pipe in the gallery of the Music Hall in Sheffield
—when the youth's coat tail was ignited by a fuzee
box in the gallery of the Victoria Theatre—nothing
lamentable, in any way, could have happened.
Whoever leant against the balustrade in the first
instance might have had a tumble that would have
broken no bones, and have been picked vp again as
tnough nothing had occurred. In the third instance
particularized, the one in which sixteen unhappy
lads were suddenly snatched out of life—the loss of
a coat tail would have been the whole extent of
the misfortune. While in the second instance—no
evil result of any kind would have remained to be
recorded—for, however alarming the flame may
have appeared to be, there still remains, at Sheffield,
unscorched, uninjured, the Music Hall supposed to
have been threatened at the time with a conflagra-

tion.
The unthinking panics that have thus thrice
caused, within so short an interval, such a really
lamentable destruction of human life, are surely
very sad spectacles indeed for contemplation. There
is an evidence in each case of such a total absence
of any power of self-command, of rational reflec-
tion, of what is termed reasonable self-
possession. The safety of a crowded audience
appears to be at all times extremely precarious.
A frivolous cry of Fire, raised by misapprehension
or by way of a brutal practical joke, may at any
instant—experience has recently proved this only
too plainly—result in one of these disastrous cata-
strophies. The knowledge of this deplorable expe-
rience ought to be extended far and wide—if only
for the better inculcation of the lesson of prudence
it enforces. And that P—simply that the wisest
thing each individual in an audience can possibly
do in the event of any alarm is to remain perfectly
quiescent. Had this been the course pursued in
the three miserable instances already specified--
Mr. SPURGEON might have finished his discourse
almost without any noticeable interruption, the
musical performance at Sheffield might have ended
harmoniously, and the Victoria Pantomime on
Boxing-day might have closed its first performance
hilariously instead of with this hideous denouement.
Another reflection forced upon us by the frequent
recurrence of these deplorable accidents—a reflec-
tion, moreover, particularly noticeable in a moment,
as it helps in some measure to furnish a clue to the
cause of each catastrophe—is that which points to
the generally inadequate egress there is for an
audience collected together in the majority of our
places of public entertainment. If we remem-
ber rightly it was Mr. HARRISON, the eminent
tenor singer, who directed att'ntion not very long
since to the fact of there being some half-a-dozen
doors carefully nailed or locked up, here and there,
about Drury-lane Theatre, seldom if ever opened on
any occasion whatever, and which doors only re-
quired to be opened almost to double the facilities
for the passage out into the stairs, of the audience
assembled within :its walls. In the reconstruction
of our theatres of late due regard, it is gratifying ,
to note, has been paid to this important, often, it
has proved, vitally important, accommodation. It
is w, for example, in the Great Opera House in
Covent-garden. It is so, likewise, in the admirable
theatre reconstructed from the foundations to the
roof-tree in the Ad.elphi. Let the points of egress
be thus multiplied, and the audiences, in any case of
alarm, remain quiet until the nature of the alarm
and the reasonableness of it can be ascertained, and
we shall then, but not till then, be guarded
from a recurrence of these horrible catastrophies. 1

ROYAL NEW YEAR'S GIFT.—Her Majesty the
Queen, as is her usual custom, has commanded to be de-
spatched from Windsor two fine sirloins of beef as a New-
year's gift to the ex-Queen of the French at Claremont.