THE DISASTER IN PARIS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10646, 28 June 1897, Page 4

THE DISASTER IN PARIS.

GENERAL MOURNING.

It is useless to ask those who nro living Id Pails to think or speak of anything but the horrlblo disaster of yesterday, and 19 will be easily understood that the whole city Is In mourning (writes M. de Blowlta to The Times under date, Paris, May sth). I doubt If any event, however painful, has ever mads a more piofonnd Imyras•ion. No Press In the world is more abundantly supplied with reporters than the Fronoh, and nowhere are newapaper articles more lively and graphic, more plotureßque in style, and more full of fancy whenever any great event stirs men's minds and oxoltes publio curloelty. But on 'ohb occasion a dark veil teems to subdue their accustomed brilliancy. The descriptions are sober, confaeed, uncertain. You feel that the minds ot tho writers have been so profosud.iy moved that they dream no louger of eclipsing one another or of dazzling their leaders by their cleverness. Their pens betray the real grief wbioh fills their hearts. What they know they stats exactly as It Is, without any extraneous Bid of the Imagination, If they conld they would tone down nther than aggravate the horror of the events which truth, obliges them to relate, In the streets tbe habitual din hot deoidedly diminished and people speak lo lower tones. It is as if passers-by were conversing la a ohnrch or at the side of a grave, and It is, indeed, by the side of tbe graves which are to be dag daring tbe next few days that the life of the great olty hag been lived nines the terrible disaster of yesterday. Throughout those quarters of the city reaching from the Forte Oauphlne, the Port" Maillot, and the Trooadero to tho Fanbonrg So. Honoi6, the Cams la Keine, and the Faubourg Sb, Germain, are to be seen at a hundred doorways smßll groups speaking ylth hushed voices and remaining as If motionless at tbe thresholds of the .homes which, directly or Indirectly, are now In mourning. These 200 victims, dead, dying, Injured,. or for ever mutilated, bare thrown into mourolDg probably a thousand families which are the widest) known, the mast hosplfr o'ole, and upon whom trade In the great city most depends — those families, Indeed, wuloh are the most) indispensable for tbe normal life of the publlo, for the animation of the street', and for the brilliancy of the assoujblles and all soolal functions On the posters of the Opdra, the Oj 6ra Comlqu», the Comddle Frarcilse, and the do'dan a broad white b»ud has been pasted bearing the word " re'.ioho." and throughout the fashionable quarters numberless evening parties— for lo Is the height of the season here— have bceu postponed. Round the Rue Jean Goujon, where, as I said this morning, a high pallsudo conoeala from the crowd the sire of tbe disaster, the orowd remainß silent end oompaot, on the watoh for some fresh discovery of obarred bones, patiently waiting tot the departure of eaoh now oonvoy, . bearing thence from under the grayobtack ashes which oover the empty apace thii or that remnant of a nameless body. It is said to-day that the dead number 130, and I dare not Rive the number of the lnjared. The totals given vary from 200 to 250 victims. I have refrained from exact figures, for I am convinced that it Is Impossible to ascertain the ex"ot number of thn victims. I have yfrlflsd Id q dozen different ways the number of persons who were present at the moment of the outbreak of tbo fire— that in to my, the moment of the disaster, for not five infantes passed between tha first) Ihsh of the flumes and the fall ot tbe hangings and the ' roof. My conclusion Is that there were at leas!' 1,200 p»r*ons present, and that oud Of theie 1209 from 600 to 600 snccoed.Bil In getting sifely out, elthor by door or window or by a narrow egreat at tbe left of the buffet. The others, dispersed in the bnlldlng, whloh w'ji encumbered by seats and benches in the oentre, collected in tha corners or pressed tight together near the entranoe, remained the prey of tbe dimes, of the tain of falling tar, apd ot tbe burnlDg paper, for In many oases the lowpr limbs Of the bodies are practically uninjured. It 1b dear that the lamp of the klnernatograph whloh caused the fire contained a mixture of oxygen and vaponr of ether. It was oompresaed in a cylinder below the apparatus. The man la oharge of it re-ma-nbers only that the lamp went out. This was probably followed by a sadden flaring up whioh set fire to the curtains. An inquiry has of course been ordered. The man was highly competent and was very aotl?e In the work of rescue. The nearest parallel to this calamity befalling the upper olasses ia the fire on July Ist, 1810, at the ffc'e given by Priuca Bohwarzsnbere. the Austrian Ambaiwador. The Empetor Napoleon and Marie Louise were pweut, There were then, however, only a very few lives lost.

Vienna, May 6. Tbe melanoholy tidings that a sister of the Eoaprees Elizabeth, the Dnchess d'AleooDD, was among the victims has onoemoro aroused deep and widespread popular sympathy for the Imperial family in tbelr misfortune. The Dnobees d'Alencon waa the youngest of the five daughters of Duka Max of Bavaria, her four other sisters being tbe Empress of Austria, the ex- Queen of Naples, the Hereditary Princess Helena of Thurn and Taxis, and the Countess Mathilda of Trani. Duke Charles Theodore of Bavaria Is her brother. All those who knew her are unanimous In testifying to her great personal chirm and amiability. In tbe aummer of 1865 she was betrothed to the young King Ludwlg 11. of Bavaria, who teems to have been for a time irresistibly attraoted by her, but suddenly the king broke off tbe engagement without any other ostensible reason than that mental a fixation which snbiequently . developed into iiieaniiy. Three yearn later— that it to say, In September, 1868, Prlnoesß Sophie married the Duo d'Alecc^n, grandson of Lonin Phillippe. Her daughter, Princess Louise, married Prinoe Alphonee of Bavaria, and ber son Enunael, tbe Duo de V«nddmo, eiponned Princess Henrietta of Belgium. The Dnohesß was a frtquent visitor iv Vienna, and was here for tho last time "n t<he occasion of the marriage of the Dak? Phllllppe of Orleans with tbe Arohduoheoa .Maria Dorothea, Another of the victims Mmc, Josephine Porgen is c. near relative of tbe well-known Vienna banker, M. Ephrneiia.