Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-12-16
THE VIENNA DISASTER.
Eight Hundred Persons Burned or
sunOcated.

[ bEIAlLh VI TIE IEhhlHLE THEATRE IlkE-THE
FIRE BEGINS on THE STAGE AND SUDDENLY
BURSTS on THE UNsusPECTING AUDIENCE
THE FLAMES LEAP to THE DOME AND AN IN
PARALLEL SCENE OF HORROR ENsUEs.
The burning Of the Ring Tn, atre at Vienna
on Thursday evening Of last week, was the
most terrible calamity of the kind which has
ever occurred, the number of lives lost hav-
ing been not less than 500 The theatre was
the most beautiful and popular place of
amusement in Vienna, but its beauty was
produced by the lavish use of the materials
best suited to spread a fire, and in the ar
rangements for entrance and exit it was a
veritable death-trap. 1t had four galleries,
access to which was gained by narrow, tor
tuous staircases, dimly lighted by Pickering
gas. jets, and unless one was acquainted with
the passages he would easily lose himself in
an attempt to leave the theatre under ordinary
circumstances. The manager was required
by law to have oil lamps in these passages, to
be used in the event of the gas being cut off,
but he neglected to do so, and the result was
that the panic-stricken crowd struggled vain
ly in the darkness to escape from the burn
ing building. The fire occurred early in the
evening, before the performance had begun
and when only a part Of the audience had ar
rived. 1t is supposed that 2OOO persons we're
in the building. Many of these were of the
poorer classes who had focked to the CALLER
les to close the celebration of their great fete,
the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Not
less than 900 gallery tickets had been issued.
The fire began on the stage and, the drop
curtain being down, had burned some time
before the audience had any suspicion Of dan
ger There are two theories of the origin of
the fire. One is that a workman on the stage
dropped an oil lamp and set fire to the scenery;
the other is that fire was communicated by a
spark from the electric lighting apparatus.
Among the stage apparatus was an iron screen
or fire curtain, which, il it had been lowered,
would have given the audience time to es-
cape; but in the excitement Of the moment
this was forgotten or it was impossible to
reach and operate it. 1t is a remarkable fact
that the audience were kept so long in utter ig-
norance Of the danger which threatened them.
The screams of the members of the chorus,
mufiied by the intervention of the heavy cur
tain, conveyed no alarm to the people in the
front of the house. In short time the flames
had made such Roadway on the stage, fed as
they were by the scenery, ropes, and highly
combustible materials in the wings, that the
light began to show through the painted drop.
Even this produced no fear among the audi
ence. The illumination was attributed to ex.
periments with the calcium lights which were
used in the ballet. The audience continued
to buzz and seat itself, and the lobby was
thronged with ladies and gentlemen indulg.
ing in final chat before taking their places
in the boxes, when, suddenly, the flames at
tackled the drop curtain, and burst forth in
one large sheet which swept away the canvas
in an instant, and leaped upward to the dome,
bursting through the roof few minutes later
The scene which followed can never be ade-
quately described. A loud shrek Of Fire"
went up from 1000 terrified men and women,
and an immediate movement toward the mar
row doors was begun from all quarters of the
house. Women screamed and tainted men
yelled and pushed over the PROSTATE forms Of
the weaker, trampling them without mercy
in their struggle to gain the passageways In
the midst Of the confusion the noise of ter
rife explosion was added to the shrieks of
the persons imprisoned in the building, which
had now become furnace, and the lights in
the house were instantly extinguished The
CAST tank had burst, and the narrow, compli-
Gated passages leading from the galleries were
in total darkness. The doorways became
jammed with the fighting throng, and soon it
was impossible to go forward or retreat As
the gas-tank exploded, the flames pierced the
roof of the theatre, and the Schotten Ring
was ablaze with light. The interior Of the
building was now SO hot that men and wom-
en- dropped in their tracks, and lay where
they fell until suffocation ended their misery.
) Despair and frenzy seem to have taken pos
session of the occupants of the galleries. Cut
of from all retreat by way of the narrow
staircase, which was ologged by mass of
humanity, and having no windows from
which to throw themselves, many of the mad
dened men and women cast themselves head
| long from the fourth gallery to the pit below,
where they were either instantly killed by the
fall or persisted of suffocaton Others gave
themselves up without struggle and calmly
awaited certain death in the furnace, which
was now at white heat
The Wiener AiegemeiAe ZeitunS whose
offices are exactly opposite the Inflated Ring
Theatre, gives graphic account of the ca
tastrophe, of which the following is an ex-
tract:
Eat ten minutes before seven o'clock the
FIRE broke out. The theatre was pretty well
! filed, but happily not entirely crowded. A
considerable number of people were still in