Vienna was the scene on Thursday night of a horrible
calamity. While the Ring Theatre was filled with 2,000 people, a fire broke out ou the stage. The dancing-girls were seized with a panic, the officials whose duty it was to drop the iron screen between the stage and the auditorium fled, and the audience rushed pell-mell out of the house. The corridors were dark, the exits were choked, and more than 300 persons were trodden to death, or in the galleries burned alive. It is feared that the death list will reach much higher figures than this, as up to the latest hour nothing was accurately known of the people in the upper galleries. The cause of the fire was, as usual, a small gas explosion ; the cause of the massacre was, as usual, insufficient means of exit. Nothing will teach theatre-builders that 2,000 persons all flying at once require more space than 2,000 persons marching slowly.
