Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-10
FOREIGN.


The Theater Fire af Vienna.
VIENNA, December 9th.-Two more bodies
have been recovered from the ruins of the
Ring Theater. The fourth gallery has not
yet been explored. 1t is believed that not a
single person escaped from that gallery, and
that very few escaped from the third gallery
The corpses last recovered are little more than
charred fragments. Gross neglect is charged
against the management of the theater. The
law prescribes the use of oil lamps in the
corridors of the theater, SO that the exits
shall be discovered in the event of the failure
of the gas, but this precaution was utterly
neglected. The person IN charge of the iron
curtain between the stage and the auditorium
appears to have fed at the first alarm.
Graphic Account of the vienna Cafas.
trOphe.
VIENNA, December 9th.-The Wlsner Al
legemefne Zeitung, whose Office is exactly or
posite the ill-fated Ring Theater, gives a
graphic account of the catastrophe, of which
the following is an extract: We write with
death in our hearts, unable to find words to
describe the pain which we suffer.
TERRIBLE CALAMITY
Befell our city to-day. The Ring Theater,
formerly known as the Opera Comique, is in
aahes, and hundreds of human beings are
victims Of the catastrophe. Nothing like
this horror has ever occurred before
in this city. At ten minutes before
Z o'clock the fire broke out The theater
was pretty well filed, but happily not en-
tirely crowded. A considerable number of
people were still in the foyer and dressing
rooms, and dense mass of carriages occupied
Seholton Ring. 1t had Just commenced to
snow, and in the auditorium Of the theater
there was the usual hustle before the COM
mencement of performance = people
walking up and down looking for their places,
and the noise of turning down seats was heard
on all sides. The boxes wera still empty,
but the balcony and galleries were filled.
On the stage everything was in o state
of activity and bustle-workmen removing
the scenery, etc. Offenbachs comic opera,
LES Contes de Hoffman," was to be per-
formed for the second time. Some of the
singers and actors had already taken their
places on the stage in costume. but large
number, however, were still in the dressing
rooms in the hands of the customers and
hair-dressers. The overture had not yet be.
gun.
HOW THE FIRE COMMENCED
Cannot yet be definitely stated, and probably
it never will be known. According to one
version the scenery was ignited by a spark
from the electric machinery. According to
another, a workman with an alcohol lamp
caused the disaster. The former version is
the more likely one. Director Holmesberger,
who was upon the stage, was the first one to
netics the fire. In moment after the fiies''
were wrapped in flames, and the network Of
wood, ropes and canvas was burning Ike
finder. The people on the stage were stupe-
fed with fear at first, and they speedily took
fight, in the most terrible confusion, towards
the ladies' dressing-rooms on the left of the
stage, where a small staircase led to the
Hohsnslaufer strasse. In moment the
curtain flew up, and the draft blew
it hither and thither until like fiery tongue
it darted back and forth from auditorium to
stage. Fire became the master of the Ring
Theater. :'Fire fire The Ring Theater
is on fire !" was the cry that went from
mouth to ear. On hing strasse the flames
were already bursting through the roof, and
CRIES SUCH as VIENNA NEVER HEARD BEFORE
Filled the air. They seemed not like the cries
of human beings, but such woeful accents
as can be heard only in a death strug.
gle. The scene was inde-cribable. Ali
those inside the Inflated building
were pressing their way towards the
street, which was crowded at all points 1he
audience from the theater struggled and
crushed each other in peristyle and foyer, and
confusion reigned. Suddenly cries were heard
from the windows Of the hallway leading to
the Ring balcony, over the entrance, which
was soon empSied, and the cries Of those al
the windows and Of those within the theater
were awful, and sweiled louder and louder.
The mass of people in the street was growing
denser constantly.
The morning papers publish long, heart
ren6ing accounts of the catastrophe. The
mos5 Of them place the dead st 300, with
those persons who were in the fourth gallery
yet to hear from. The number will be
swelled to 500 at least. Even the public aeem
reluctant to speak of the extent of the disas-
ter in the upper gallery, and peithel the fire.
men nor soldiers have as yet dared to pere-
trate.
THE DREADFUL SCENE.
A fireman who had assisted in bringing out
the bodies from the third gallery, on being
asked "How many persons, do you think,
are IN the fourth gallery" answered, 1.-TWO
can tell? They are there in thick masses.
We shall not know how many are dead
until the people Of Vienna have sent
in their list of the missing ones to
the police" The origin of the FIRE is
not yet established to certainty, but of the
cowardics of the firemen On the stage and
who should have let down the
iron screen, CT the general want of provision
TO prevent such a catastrophe. there remains
10 doubt. The theater itself was very hand.
come eGiice, as far as the interior was con-
carued, and was apparently constructed
with @ view to exaggerate such
a catastrophe as that of last night. The
stairs and passsge-ways were laid out in
strangely complicated manner, so that one
needed good knowledge of the place to find
his way at all in and cut of the theater.
These psculiarities were noted On the day of
the opening of the tbeater, on the 10th of
January, 1874, when II Barbiere de Sevig-
Liza" was performed. These stairways and
last night proved fatal to many who
had already escaped the horrors of suffoca.
tion inside the auditorium.
STORY OF AN EYE WITNESS.
Inspector Nitzol escaped from his dwelling
on the upper story. He describes tLe fearful
scene in the auditorium as follows: TIE
people lay there in heaps, and many in the
strangest pos.ures. Some had their hands
stretched out imploringly, and there were
others whose nails were driven into the flesh
in pain and despair.
THE FOURTH GALLERY.
Persons who have seen the dead in the
fourth gallery describe the bedies as all lying
in the position they had fallen-forward,
backward, upward, all together in convul-
sively clinging masses. They were unable to
leave the gallery because the doors opened
iuwards. Even had they escaped death here,
it is scarcely possible that they would have
escaped in the passages ard narrow stair
ways, plunged in total darkness and filed
with suffocating fumes, Death csme to them
quickly, however.
THE LOSS or LIFE
VIENNA, December 9tb-Midnieh THE
extent of the calamity has hitherto been
much understated. Ore thousand one hum
dred and thirty persons are announced at the
police bureau as missing, and assuming that
mary of these will burn up, it is feared that
The total loss will lot be much less than l, coo
persons.
the Ne Rent Movement.
LONDON, December 9th.-Seven persons
living in the vicinity Of Castle Island, County
Kerry, have been arrested under the CO.
ercion Act, on suspicion of attacking house.
The tenants Of the Marquis Of Drogheda,
and the Marquis Of Devonshire and Lords
Masseren and Clancurry, Counties Kildare
and Wicklow, have joined the 10 rent move
ment. They received midnight visits, and
notices threatening death if they paid rent
Report ContradIctcd.
LONDON, December 9;h.-The Governor of
Salonica cortradicts the recent report that
some Turkish officers and soldiers massa-
cred Christian family at Luca and carried
off sixteen men, women and children and
600.
The Italian Chambers.
Pour Daoa,,bo, Ia ITALIAN Cho-n