RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 84, 3 January 1930, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

SIDELIGHTS ON CURRENT EVENTS LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By i

Cosmos.)

The banks will do themselves well In the way of holidays this coming ApriL According to the Almanack for 1930, the four Easter holidays—Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Day (Sunday), and Easter Monday, April 18, 19, 20 and 21, respectively—will be followed immediately by a “special Bank holiday” (Princess Elizabeth’s birthday), on April 22, and St George’s Day, April 23, also a Bank holiday. The public will be able to get some money on the following day, but April 25, Anzac Day, will once more see the shutters up, and people running short of change.

Over eighty people, including numerous children, have lost their lives as a result of panic subsequent to an outbreak of fire in a kinema at Paisley. Thanks to the numerous strictly enforced regulations, there have been remarkably few disasters of this nature in Britain, or for that matter anywhere else in the world—and none in New Zealand. It has been well known for years that the real danger in a modern theatre lies in panics, and the recent outbreak seems to have confirmed this fact. But for panic indeed many of the other kinema disasters all over the world would have been averted, or at least minimised so far as loss of life was concerned. On January 10, 1927, a small boy, one of an audience of 1200, discovered fire in the Laurier Kinema Palace, Montreal. His shrieks started a panic. Smoke was seen to be pouring from the front of the balcony. Women and children rushed to the various stairways, and got jammed until by sheer weight the stairways collapsed. Those on the ground level did not panic, and got out safely in good time. Eventually a hole was cut in the upper walls, and many people saved from the balcony. Considering, however, that seventy of the eighty killed lost their lives through being trampled on and suffocated, and only five died of actual burns, it was evident that panic and not fire caused this loss of life. “ ♦ . » In the case of the catastrophe that took place at a small Irish Free State village called Dromcolllher, in September, 1926, however, sheer carelessness and an unsuitable building was the cause of. the disaster. In this case forty-eight persons were burnt to death whilst watching a kinema show in a loft. The place was packed with about 200 persons. The only entrance was up a ladder. There were two windows in the loft, but they were barred. The building was made of wood, and the nearest fire engine was 36 miles away at Limerick. The projecting apparatus was situated close to the door in the open, and the operator was reported to have used a naked candle propped in a bottle as illumination. When the film caught fire at the start of the programme the only flames that leapt from the apparatus, barred the only exit. Panic ensued, not unnaturally, the ladder collapsed, and in a few minutes the room was a mass of flames. In the loss of life at Paisley, fumes seem to have asphyxiated many of the victims. There can be little doubt as to the deadly nature of fumes given off by burning film. Only this year an explosion occurred in the X-ray film department of a large hospital at Cleveland in the States. Deadly bromide compounds were released in enormous clouds and spread partly via the ventilation system, to the ward. The gases burnt out the sensitive tissues of tho mouth and lungs, causing bedridden victims to die in less than a minute. It was thought that the initial explosion that started the catastrophe came from gas slowly liberated from film stored close to the heating tunnel running round the building. But panics are by no means exclusive to kinema disasters. * * An idea of psychological effect of smoke and flames on a crowd may be had by the disaster in the Novedades Theatre in September, 1928. Over 1500 people were watching the performance when flames burst out behind the stage, due to a short circuit. The lights went out, and so great was the panic, many of the bodies recovered bore traces of numerous knife wounds and bites, as the victims fought desperately for the exits. The building was 75 years old, and made of wood. As far as possible modern theatres of all types are made as fire-proof as possible. All sorts of mechanisms come into play to localise the effect of a film that catches fire. Special traps cut off the operating room from the audience, and the smoke is quickly removed by forced draught. If audiences could be made to realise that an up-to-date kinema can be emptied quietly and without rush in a minute or two, even the risk of panic would have been conquered. Australia is searching about for a cricket team to go to England to try and regain the “Ashes.” The mythical “Ashes,” accepted as the prize the English and Australian teams strive to gain or retain possession of, were the invention of the London * Sporting Tinies” They came into existence in this way. In 1882 the English team, \ftiich Included W. G. Grace, Barlow, , Uivett, the Hou. A. Lyttelton, C. T. Studd, and A. P. Lucas (names to conjure with in the cricketing world of their day. lost a memorable game at the Oval by 7 runs. England had been set 85 to win. Would they get it? Spofforth, the Australian “Demon” bowler, was confident they would not. "Sport, looked more like the demon that day than he did as Mephistopheles at a previous fancy dress ball —and behaved like one. "Irresistible as an avalanche,” said George Giffen, “he bowled his last eleven overs for two runs and four wickets. And England lost. « « * . In the next number of the “Pink ’Un” an “In Memoriam” notice appeared, surrounded with black borders: “No. 52.” “In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET, Which Died at The Oval On 26th August, 1882. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. N.B.—The body will be cremated and the ASHES taken to Australia. In the whole match Spofforth took 14 wickets, seven in each innings, for 46 and 44 respectively, and nine of his wickets were clean bowled.