| Show THE HORROR TUB destruction ot of the theatre royal exeter by fire last night is another of those appalling calamities which have become so frequent of late years that the horror chica they produce seema to be somewhat blunted by reason of familiarity it is terrible to read of at as great a distance as this and what must it have been to those who were present while the huns hungry gry flames were devouring the building and heard the agonizing shrieks and screams for from men women and children and what an awful spectacle was that which followed when the fire fiend had relaxed his destructive grasp and the work ot of taking out bodies all charred and unrecognizable begs began n I 1 at latest advich advices the remains of a hundred and thirty victims had been found and extricated from the wholesale funeral pyre to which without warning or preparation they had been sent seat this suggests the horrid conclusion that many more are to be found since the work of recovery so soon after the catastrophe whet all is a mass of cinders and embers must necessarily be slow and tedious some perhaps have been completely incinerated or the remains so scattered wd and blended with the debris that they never will be found and ana thus only an ari approximation of the total mortality will ge be all that is ever complied compiled it would be different if the rescued bodies could be identified but as it is those who have friends missing will wili conclude that the lost ones are among those whose identity cannot be determined and let it rest at that it is not a little singular that in this day of advanced scientific development and mechanical and chemical invention ven tion fire proof buildings as imposing in in proportions and as elegant in architecture as those which are not cannot or are not constructed and the fact that none of them are sufficiently i provided with wita means for ready and rapid egress is aso also much behind the advancement ot of the age in this latter respect there is less excuse than in the cormer former because less ingenuity is required and the additional expense woula be little if anything more than if the stereotyped designs of construction were followed until the stern hand of the law takes hold bold of the subject and compels those who erect places of amusement to provide every possible safeguard and protection it is probable that we shall continue to have the almost periodical holocaust with the regular verdict of nobody to blame |
