A horrible catastrophe has occurred at Dundee. A man named
Springthorpe promised on 2nd January a musical entertain- ment in a hall excavated under a local church. The approach to this place is down a staircase of thirteen steps, at the top of which is a gate with two leaves. As the time of admission drew near, the crowd, which in Dundee at the New Year is usually half drunk, crushed against the gate, the manager opened one leaf, the mob broke down the other, and in an instant a hundred per- sons were piled in a heap below the stairs. When the crowd was forced back twelve men and eight girls, almost all of the working class, were found dead. It is stated, we trust untruly, that many men who had paid at the gate interrupted the work of extricating the sufferers by clamouring for a return of their money. That incident could got have occurred in London—even in Whitechapel or Poplar.
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