ADDITIONAL MAIL NEWS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11847, 19 July 1893, Page 3

ADDITIONAL MAIL NEWS.

Calamity at Ford's Theatre. ' Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., made historic by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln within its walls 28 years ago byJ. Wilkes Booth, the actor, suddenly collapsed on June 9, crushing the life out of over a score of human beings, and inflicting injuries upon twice as many more. It is a coincidence which, will go into history, that this second tragedy occurred on the day when the remains of the tragedian Edwin Booth, brother of the assassin, whose life was so darkened by the crime that he never visited Washington afterwards, were being laid to rest. The building collapsed in the midst of an ill-judged effort to remedy some of its defects. Nearly 500 clerks employed in the pension division of the War Office were in the building. The hour of the disaster was shortly after the department had settled down for the day's work, about 0.30 o'clock. Operations under the building were the immediate cause of the catastrophe. Workmen had been tinkering on it for two hours Of more. Half an hour earlier and but few lives would have been lost. An excavation lor an electrio light plant was being dug in the cellar of the structure, a three-storey affair, and according to the best information obtainable, the workmen dug beneath the foundation supports in front of the building, weakening them to such an extent that the walls gave way before, they could be jacked. This explanation of the accident is only one advanced, but it seems somewhat stjango in view of the fact that the top floor gave way first. The. building is situated on Tenth-street, and occupied by the records and pension division of the Surgeon-General's office. The floors fell in us if they had been cards in a cardhouse. On each floor there were scores of clerks and others at work, and without warning they were carried down as if in a cataract. There were 300 clerks employed in the building at the' time of the disaster. Referring to it, ex-Congressman Poindetter Dunn, of Arkansas, made the remark, " Its too bad. I wouldn't have cared so much if they had been pensioners instead of the poor clerks," — a. remark that has been duly circulated through the press all over the country, and on account of his indiscretion Mr Dunn finds himself in very bad odour.