FATAL ACCIDENT AT THE EMPEROR'S FETE AT PARIS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2433, 27 October 1866, Page 6

FATAL ACCIDENT AT THE EMPEROR'S FETE AT PARIS.

The fete Napoleon this year is said to have been in one aspect a great success, the weather being fine and the crowds in the streets enormous. Gratuitous performances filled tho theatres to overflowing. The old out-door amusements lost none of their zest for the Parisians, and the fireworks and illuminations, in which tho electric light was for the first time introduced with, as they say in the playbills, " startling effects," were more than usually brill iant. As an act of graco on tho occasion the Emperor either pardoned or commuted the sentences upon more than eight hundred military offenders — a method of perpetuating tho remembrance of the fete and his own clemency atonce both politicaud generous. Prior to this his majesty had made a liberal distribution of the Cross of tho Legion of Honor among soldiers as well as civilians. Unfortunately the night did not pass off without a terrible accident, for a crush occurring at the Pont do la Concorde several persons lost their 1 ives. Various accounts of the deplorable occurrence have been received. Galicjncini contains the following version of the sad occurrence: — Immediately after the conclusion of the fireworks the crowd, which had become exceedingly numerous on the left bank of the tieino, pressed on to the bridge to get to tho Champ Elysees. On the other hand the enormous concourse of persons who had been occupying i;he Champs Elysees and tho Place de la Concorde were striving to cross the bridge to see what was doing on the Place des Invalides, and in spite of the energy displayed by the public force, tho pressure became such that the police and soldiers were forced back, and tho two crowds rolled forward, tho one into the other. At the moment the meeting took place a woman was thrown down, and

caused the Ml of several other persons. Then ensued a- frightful confusion, and when, by dint of exertion and perseverance, the police and soldiers succeeded in dividing the crowd, they raised from the bridge eight corpses frightfully mutilated, and a man whose life is despaired of. The number of injured — in generally slightly — is from thirty to forty. The bodies were carried into the palace of the j ""egislativc body. The emperor yesterday mo ning sent assistance to the families of those who had lost their lives, and to the, persons most severely injured. | Another account is as follows : — I In the Rue de Rivoli the two currents ; of promenandcrs met together, and a , frightful crash ensued.^ JJressea were ' torn, families separated — the confusion, in fact, was awful. The terror-struck people climbed up the iron railings of the j gardens of the Tuileries, while lots of poor women and frightened children were hoisted up to tho parapets and terraces by their distracted fathers and brothers. One poor mother who witnessed the trampling to death of her infant is now a raving lunatic. At least 1,000 persons were massed on the bridge. Each, feeling his life in peril, fought with the energy of despair. Cries, prayers, groans, and shouts of "Au secours" arose ; women fainted, and were pitlessly trod to death ; children were unmercifully trampled on. The police vainly endeavored to effect a passage through this dense mass of human beings. The Minister of the Interior arrived, and instantly gave orders for the transporting of the wounded to the Palais Lcgislatif, opposite the bridge ; five corpses were deposited in one of the halls, as well as about 170 wounded. At the apothecary's shop at the corner of the Hue de Bourgoyne no less than eight or ten corpses were to be seen ; others were | found in a house in the course of construction at tho corner of the quay where numbers of wounded had sought for shelter, and some of whom expired there. The saddest sight of all was to see the relations of the dead and dying searching about for their unfortunate brothers, sisters, and children. As to the shoes, hats, coats, and petticoats picked up by the police it would be impossible to enumerate them. It is only fair for the honor of the populace of Paris to state that the real cause of the catastrophe has bqon ascertained to be that a number of pickpockets organised beforehand a panic, shouted danger when there was none, and unfoi'tunately succeeded but too well in carrying out their infamous design. Several -arrests have taken place. An eye-witness states that the bridge after the accident was strewn with women and children's shoes, dresses, crinolines, men's hats and coats, &c. Later in the evening groups of gamins paraded the Champs Elyseos and the Rue de Rivoli, carrying aloft as trophies* crinolines aud other articles of dress belonging to the victims.