Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-02
Notorious Laxity Charged as
to New York .Theaters.
ARSON ORDINARY EVIL
PHYSICAL CULTURE EXHIBITION
DISMAL, UNsIGHTLY FAILURE
Patrons OF Show Are Mostly Men-No
French Ball This Year
Never Indecent.

| special Correspondence OF Inc Evening star.
NEW YORK. January 1. 1904.
| For all of ten days to come, now. New
York will worry and fume over the notori-
| Gus laxity, and in some cases virtually the
! suspension, of the fire regulations ap-
| piled to it's theaters. The New York news
papers will call frenzed attention to the
| condition of many famous New York thea
| ter edifices that are perfectly we'll known to
| be firetraps. The fre-tighting authorities
| will be arraigned and hauled over the Goals
| for permitting such conditions to exist. The
fire-fighting authorities will cause much ink
| to dribble from their apologize pens in ex-
| planning And while they are still explain
ing. New York people will forget all about
the whole business, and at the end they
| will wonder why the fire department people
| are doing so much writing.
| This is the old, old story over here Ne"
| York nearly always waits until the morse Is
| stolen. There Is not whit OF exaggera.ioil
| in the statement that at least three out OF
five of the New York tbeaters are 2Dso-
| lutely hopeless fretraps. 1t would be dit
| ficult to name. in particular, single broau-
| way place of amusement. with, perhaPs'
| the exception of the Metropolitan opera
| House, that offers seat-holder an even
| money chance to get out alive In case ol
| fire. This alarming fact, however. mas peeh
| pointed out a hundred times, ana always
| York that have alleys behind them, and
| very many of them are located in the mid
| die Of blocks The only way out is through
| the front entrance. 1t takes from ten 10
| twenty minutes to empty some OF the
| Broadway theaters. even when the houses
| are not filed to capacity. Ihe aisies anu
| stairways are almost invariably narrow.
| Most of the structures are OLD ana as cofh-
| buStible as dry lax.
| Criticism Pertinent Elsewhere.
| The New York fire regulations prohlbit
the seating or standing of any theater pa
| irons in the aisles, and, according 10 the
| regulations, nobody is to be allo"eo u
| stand back of the rows of seats. A n'e-
man is stationed at the back of every thea
| ter at each performance to see tha' '"eS
| regulations are enforced.
| Are they enforced? They are not Any
| body with half an eye, visiting NE" toih
| theater during the run of popular proouc
| ton can see that they are noi eht e1. oe III
| The fireman is there, all right, but Tor an
! the enforcing he does he might Just as Wen
| be Stoughton bottle or lay hgure. Inc
theater proprietorS, eager to get every poS-
| sble nickel into their houses, hotot. orr, sI
| find WAYS and means of getting to the
| fire authorities, so that the fire ordinances
| applying to theaters might Just as wen
| never have been framed The disguised
| fireman Tolls about at the rear OF the the-
| alter doing nothing to safeguard the lives
! of the chance-taking patrons, because he
| knows perfectly well what is required of
| him. The New York fireman understands
pretty well the character of the influences
| that shear him of his protecting power in
! such instances. and he knows how short
shrift he would get on the tenure OF MS
| billet if he acted contrary to his 1nstruc-
| tons and enforced the fire regulat tons to
| their letter.
So the aisles of New York theaters are
| often packed with people sitting on the
| steps right down to the musicians seats
| a u IL
! ings in the balconies. Under such condi-
| tions there need be no actual fire to cause
| the tramplng and mangling of hundreds of
| desperate and crazed persons all frahtically
| striving to reach the one exit.
| The criminal imbecile who yells x ire!
| in a theater has only to emit his fiendish
| yelp, whether there be a fire or not, to
| cause the death of hundreds. The cluttered
| aisles and passages at the rear of the the
| aters would permit of the escape of the
| merest handful in the very last seats near
| est the door. In the case of an actual fire.
considering the tinder-like combustibility
of great majority of the New York the
| aters, the ensuing holocaust would be little
| short of appalling. If fe fire originated
on the stage, as most theater fires do, the
| players in the average New York theater
| would have scarcely any chance whatever
| since there are few alleys back of the New
| York theaters to offer them channels of
escape.
| Conditions Have Existed for Years.
These conditions have been existing for
many years, and there seems to be no rea-
| son whatever for supposing that they will
| not go right on existing until the inevitable
| stunning catastrophe occurs.
Most of the New York theater managers
| have mysterious Method of placatins the
! fire authorities, but some OF them have
| such an ineXplicable pull and seem to be so
| perfectly certain of their ground that they
| openly defy the fire department, repudiating
suggestions made for the protection of the
lives of their patrons, and braZenly refuS-
| ing to obey the most ordinary instructions
| issued for the safeguarding OF theater-
gCerS.
Not very long ago a very well-known
New York manager. man known for his
| pugnaciouS spirit, was politely requested
| in writing, by high official of the New
| York fire department to make certain triv-
/ ial alterations at the entrance to one of his
| theaters for the purpose of lettering the
| chance of an audience to escape from the
playhouse in case of a fire.
In rage at the ''audacity" cf the high
official of the fire department, the manager
| seized his pen and addressed a reply to
| the communication He began his note
I of reply:
| After which exhibition of epistolary man.
| ners, he proceeded to tell the high official
| of the fire department to mind his own
| business in language of the utmost coarse
| ness and violence The manager gave this
| letter to the press before it had a chance
to reach the official to whom it was ad-
| dressed.
| The vulgar impudence of that communi ga
| ton stunned the town, and people waited
| in confidence that the fire depal tmen- would
| swoop upon that managers thaater and
| close it until the suggested alterations were
| made. Well. the theater wasn't closed and
| the alterations weren't made-they haven't
| been made to this day. Not only that but
| the high official of the fire department swal-
| lowed the managers insulting coumunica-
| ton whole, and made no fitting reply dig
nified or otherwise, to it.
This was a very humiliatng incident to
| self-respecting New Workers. They were
| driven to the conclusion that the manager
! must have been powerfully sure of his
ground-must have been eminAntIy con-
| scious of his possession in the PREMISES of
what is expressively termed an edge on the
| stuation'-before he wrote any such 2
! communication as that. And their conclu-
| sion was clinched when they saw, 10 their
| deep disgust. that the militant maraser
| got away with his string of insults and
| his positive refusal to obey the sugges-
| tons of the high official of the fire de-
partment.
Requires Tragedy to Arouse New York.
| 1t takes gloomy tragedy, such as the
destruction by fire of the Windsor Hotel