26 MARCH 1988, Page 12

One hundred years ago

ANOTHER theatre has been burned down, in the usual way and with the usual appalling results. On the night of the 20th inst, while the Baguet Theatre of Oporto — a house for comic opera was crowded to the roof, some scenery was moved too near a gas-flame. The canvas caught fire, the flames spread, the audience saw them, and in a mo- ment there was a wild stampede. The gas went out, the roughs in the upper galleries trampled down the weak and the women — even, according to the Daily News, using knives to' hack their way through the press — and as the doors were too narrow, crowds were suffocated or trampled to death.

The Spectator, 24 March 1888