As we expected, the first accounts of the catastrophe at
the Ring Theatre, Vienna, were not exaggerated, but minimised. Instead hf 300 victims, nearly 900 were probably burned or crushed to death, official certainty having been obtained as to more than 600. More than half of all within the theatre must have perished, and several of the survivors are insane. Great indignation is felt at the carelessness of the management, there being reason to suspect that the theatre was on fire unperceived when the performance was about to commence, and the conduct of the police is denounced. They appear to have had only one idea, —to prevent disorder, by declaring that everybody was out of the theatre. Witnesses who had just left their friends burning were arrested for saying so, though they said it to inspectors. It is believed that but for this officialism, many more might have been saved, and the police have been justly attacked in Parliament. Henceforward, every Viennese theatre is to be inspected by the police before each performance, the only effect of which practice will be that managers will feel a little less responsible. •
