THE MOSCOW DISASTER. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. "]
SIE,—In your " News of the Week " of June 6th you can recall nothing to equal the Moscow tragedy except that at Fidena3. A -disaster strangely parallel to that at Moscow happened in France in May, 1770. In that year the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI., married the Archiduchesse Marie Antoinette, and the city of Paris closed a series of festivities by a display of fire- works in the Place Louis XV. One of the platforms from which the fireworks were set off caught fire, panic seized on the crowd, hundreds were crushed to death, hundreds were pushed into the river. The French Minister told Horace Walpole that ' the number of the killed is so great that they try to stifle rit." Possibly a thousand perished. The Dauphin and Dauphiness devoted a month's income to the relief of the -sufferers, and Marie Antoinette herself visited many families. Strangest coincidence of all, both disasters happened on the same day, May 30th.—I am, Sir, &e., Tiverton, N. Devon, June 8th. M. L. BANKS.
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