Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-12
THE AUsTRIAN pEATE-TRAP.

As fuller accounts of the dreadful occur
renee at Vienna come to hand it becomes
more evident that the whole affair was the
legitimate consequence of the most amaz-
ing and almost systematic stupidity and
incompetency. The Ring Theater seems
to have been constructed in complete an
tagonism to every lesson of experience and
every dictate of reason. 1t contained
everything that theater ought not to
have. The passage ways leading to the
various parts of the auditorium were mar
row, crooked and intricate All the doors
opened inward capital defect No pro-
vision was made against panics. When
the alarm was given the gas was turned
off, as if to deprive the audience of their
last hope of escape. In fact they were
caught like rats in trap. The fire de-
partment of Vienna, as matter of course,
was utterly useless. There is nothing sur
prising in that, for there is not city of
importance on the whole continent of
Europe which possesses a competent fire
department. That of Paris is ridiculous.
That of Berlin is equally SO. That of
Vienna has just been proved complete
failure. It is only in England that any
attention has been paid to this subject,
and though the London fire department
is considered wonderful system by
untraveled Englishmen, it is enough
to say of it that it will not
stand comparison for a moment with
that of San Francisco. In Vienna they
brought the customary hand engines, which
squirt water about as forcibly as Sacra-
mento garden hose, to the fire at the Ring
Theater. As it was, the destruction of life
had probably occurred SO rapidly that
nothing could have saved the majority of
the sufferers. People suffocate and crush
one another in these cases, and their fran.
tic struggles insure their doom. 1t now
appears probable that more than fifty per
cent of the entire audience, or at least one
thousand people, have persisted. Nothing
to compare with this disaster in magnitude
or horror has occurred since the burning of
the cathedral at Santiago some ten or
twelve years ago, but the Vienna case is
very much the worse of the two. OF
course there is to be searching investi.
cation" They always follow some
monumental illustration OF human folly,
willfulness and criminal negligence. But
the Government can hardly escape censure
here, for it is perfectly clear that such a
building as the Ring Theater never ought
to have been licensed, and it never would
have been had there been any intelli-
gent supervision in such matters. 1t
is natural under the circumstances
that the Viennese should call for the
closing of all the remaining theaters until
they have been SO altered as to be easy of
ingress and egress. And while the subject
Is fresh in the general mind, it might be
well to inquire how many American thea.
ters are demonstrably better off than the
Vienna death-trap in these matters. Is
there s. theater in San Francisco, besides
the old California, which has any effective
provisions against panic or fire As rule
nearly all our theaters are built, like the
Ring Theater, in the center of the block,
and any theater SO built is exposed to very
great danger, because the auditorium is
necessarily long way from the street, and
also because fire may occur between it
and the street. In fact, if American thea.
tiers are not as recklessly built as that in
Vienna, there are many of them which are
probably very little safer, nor perhaps can
we expect any general reform in this re.
spect until we have had catastrophe of
our OWL. Our architects would probably
consider it beneath them to take lesson
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