The herald., 1893-06-10
FRIGHTFUL DISASTER AND A CURIOUS
COINCiDRNCR.

/ The disaster which occurred yesterday
morning in Warrington is calculated to
inspire people with the belief that there
is a great deal in luck. 1t was princi.
pie with the Fret Napoleon never to
place any trust in an unlucky man and
he, like Caesar, WAS believer in his
star. With most persons who care to
give their impressions to the public
there is an sffectation OF contempt at
the merest suggestion OF the fortuitous
in human affairs. And yet there Ia
really something peculiar in the coinci-
dence that, on the day Edwin Booth
was buried, the building in which his
brother aesaseinated President Lincoln
should collapse and crush many Of it's
inmates TO death. The person who
would regard such a spot as unlucky
would not need to be imbued with any
very great amount OF superstition. The
hoodoo would seem to flourish around it
in fatal luxurance, to entwine itself as a
network and to send forth warning ex-
foiations, that would lead one to avoid
it as though it were very Upas tree.
1t is little over twenty-eight years
since John Wilkes Booth, the younger
brother OF Edwin Booth, sped his fatal
bullet through the brain of Abraham
Lincoln. 1t was on the night OF Good
Friday, and a great many superstitious
people thought mistrustfully of the at
tendance of the presidential party on
auch an anniversary. Mr.. Lincoln, how
ever, was a man of very liberal senti-
ments in matters of religion, and he
doubtless highly exulted at the happy
ending of the war. The long strain had
told severely upon him, and he prob
ably felt the need OF a little relaxation.
No dream of assassination marred his
enjoyment of the play, and the crack OF
Booths pistol was doubtless never heard
by him, though it aroused a whole ma
tion to frenzy.
The building whose crumbling en-
tombed so many people yesterday was
not the identical theater in which Booth
asaessinated Lincoln. That was burnt
down some years after the tragedy and
WAS rebuilt on the old site. The associ-
ations connected with the damnably
taking off of the martyr president proved
too much for it. When the writer saw
it in 1887 it was being used for some sort
of business purpose, the precise nature
of which does not now occur to him.
It was afterwards converted into sort
of annex to the pensionsbureau, to which
use it was being put when the catastro-
phe Of yesterday occurred.
10 appears Jtin0 tno urr"sGer was OWING
to excavations that were being made 1
under the building. This would look as
if there had been criminal carelessness
on the part of those who had the exca-
vations in charge. Doubtless in con-
verting the edifice from theater into a
department annex it was materially
weakened, some of the supports and
buttresses being removed and not being
replaced. 1t appears that the building
had been condemned, but that, notwith-
standing, the lives of five hundred and
thirty-6ve people were daily jeopsrdized
in it's rotton walls.
But that the building should collapse
on the very day of Edwin Booths
funeral is one OF those unaccountable
condolences for which no one can fur
nish either reason or theory. There
is NO moral available from the casualty
that an ordinary man can see. 1t SIM
ply happened that way. In view of the
occurrences twenty-eight years ago and
yesterday very few people will desire to
make their habitat in the building
which may be erected to replace that
which fell down yesterday.