The family stimulant.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 949, 14 May 1908, Page 18

The family stimulant.

of exits was of infinitely greater importance than their number and widths. Many places of amusement, lecture halls and places of worship, though fulfilling the requirements of the City Council, would prove to be veritable death-traps in times of panic; a very large proportion of the audience would never be able to reach the exits, and a great many more would either be crushed 1 in them, or in the corridors or stairs leading to them. The problem was to arrange exits so that irresponsible people in any part of the building should be impelled to move towards the one designed for their use, through which they must be able to pass to the street without any danger of resistance either from the structural arrangements or from opposing active forces- The author’s safety exit aimed at the elimination of all resistance to outward progress by means of curved solid dwarf partitions, about 4ft 6in high. They might be constructed of double plates of shet iron, and should be permanently and strongly fixed, and perfectly smooth. Applying his scheme to an already existing exit, an illustration was given of the exit being divided into three parts, the outer ones equal in width to the gangways at the ends of the seats, and the central one proportionate to the number of people using it. By this simple device any pushing would not create pressure at the exit, but would only tend to hurry the audience more quickly into the street or corridor.