30 APRIL 1870, Page 2

A terrible accident occurred at Richmond, Virginia, on the 27th

April. The Court of Appeal occupies rooms above the House of Representatives, and on that day the Court was crowded, people being anxious to hear a decision to be given which involved the legality of the tet oath as applied in municipal elections. The floor gave way, the people were flung into the House then sitting, and 58 persons were killed, 20 of them members, and 117 injures. This particular accident is always occurring, though rarely on so terrible a scale. Is it not possible in buildings liable to such a strain to give the floor a second series of supports, to suspend them • for example, as well as prop them? Both sets of supports would hardly give way together.