The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1882.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6500, 15 February 1882, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1882.

The terrible disaster at the RingStrasse Theatre in Vienna ought to have the effect of inducing the authorities in this country to give attention to the means of exit from all public buildings. It is. horrifying to think of the many lives that must inevitably be sacrificed oni the occasion of fire, or panic - resulting from any cause,, owing to the want of proper arrangements Tor safety. No one can read the accounts of the burning of the above theatre, and the terrible death of nearly a thousand human beings, without feeling persuaded" that' something could and ought to be- dbhe ' to reduce in all cases the risk of such calamity to a minimum. And the desire for this provision only becomes the more intensified by the information that the arrangements for safety in this instance are said to have been considered good, and yet. failed. The,.architect of the building has stated .that there were no fewer than five distinct and separate ways of egress from the., several staircases. These must have been, safety or side ways, over and above the ordinary means of egress; meant to be used on the occasion of panic only, and to prevent the -crowd from trampling ■; on. each other in their eagerness to escape. Only on this supposition can,, we account, for the otherwise extraordinary . statement, that the door keys of the several outlets were in the pockets of the; cloakroom attendants, a statement which could not refer to the main or outer doors of the building. The. precaution of the keys placed in these doors as soon as- the building was thrown open to the public seems to have been neglected.. It does not even appear to have occurred to the parties having the oversight of arrange-; ments that, in the event of a panic, the attendants with the keys in their pockets would be prevented from; getting near these doorways by . the i dense rush of peoplestruggling; to escape. But, supposing them to have been able to reach them on the disastrous occasion! referred to, the question is, would; they, oven then, have been able to effect the opening of them? This would, obviously, have depended on whether the doors opened out or opened in. ■ If they opened inwards the very pressure of the people would have rendered -the opening of them impossible. I'rotn all we can gather, it - would 1 seem ’that these doors must have"'been constructed td‘ open, inwards,' for we have the harrowing tale of,the firemen, on breaking in one of these locked doors, finding twenty-five dead bodies in front of it.. The number was not so great as to neutralise by pressure the exertion of those nearest the door, and they could, without difficulty, have burst it open —even if’ locked—had proper arrangements beep, ma.de for its,opening outwards; hut as it opened upwards, the victims could only await their dreadful doom. Now, it is just here that provision against' panics in public, buildings, whether arising from fire or other causes, should begin. The doors of all such buildings, outer and inner, front and side, should all be made to. open; outwards,, and be so constructed that the very pressure of the crowd would, so far as its exit was

concerned, actually contribute to its escape. , This should be made an absolute rule, applicable alike to 1 churches, halls, and theatres, and, in a word, to 5 i all places where a multitude of people is wont to congregate, and where, under sudden excitement, the mad eagerness of everyone to escape endangers the- safety of all. There would still, it is true, even with this, precaution, be a danger of loss of life on the occasion of any panic, for at such a time terror becomes insanity, and causes the strongest to disregard the claims of the weak in the general rush for safety. But the loss could certainly be by this means minimised. There would be then no possibility, of such a ghastly scene as that which presented itself at the burning of the Church of La Compania, Santiago, when the rush chocked the entrances with a mass of dead and dying to a height of twelve feet. Unfortunately, this is one of those matters in whichauthorities are prone to refrain from action till disaster compels them to take it; and in comparatively small communities people are ready to imagine that there is little likelihood of any serious calamity happening at all resembling the cases referred to. But if a panic caused by fire were to occur in our Athenssupi Hall, or our Theatre, or any of our churches in this city, while it was full of people, and escape became hopeless because pressure rendered the opening of the doors impossible, it would bring us no comfort, amidst the sorrow which would then prevail, to reflect that the lives then lost might nearly all have been saved by a very simple precaution which we had sinfully neglected. Yet, as matters now stand, we may be compelled to make that reflection tomorrow.