As far as experience and money could secure immunity from danger, the Brooklyn Theatre was equal to the best appointed playhouses. Every gas jet was shielded by gauze shades. No smoking was allowed in any of the rooms. No matches were tolerated. No one but the gas man, Mr. Webster, was permitted to light the gas. In the rear of the left hand proscenium box was Mr. Thorpe’s private office. It communicated with the box and also with the auditorium. It was used this week by Mr. Thorne as a dressing room. Mrs. Thorne was, as always, with him. On the other side of the stage, behind the other box, was Fanny Morant’s room. Instead of remaining till the close of the piece, she left at the end of the fifth act. Above Thorpe’s room was a dressing room at the top of an exceedingly narrow stairway, occupied by Murdoch and Burroughs.
Other Memorable Disasters by Fire.
The disaster at the Brooklyn Theatre far surpasses in loss of life any accident by fire in this country or Europe. Theatres have been frequently burned and losses of life have not been uncommon, but the Brooklyn tragedy is altogether unparalleled. The disaster at Richmond, Va., December 16, 1811, when seventy persons were killed, has up to this time been known as the most terrible of the class, but it is many times overshadowed by the Brooklyn fire.
The following are the principal theatres that have been burned in this country, with loss of life:
National Theatre, Philadelphia, Ninth and Chestnut streets, July 6, 1854, and an actor named Shepherd burned.
Fox’s Theatre, Philadelphia, Walnut street, below Ninth, June 19, 1867. None of the audience were injured, but ten firemen and five spectators were killed by the falling of the front wall, and thirty persons were injured.
The following theatres were burned without loss of life:
Front street, Baltimore, Feb. 3, 1838; Melodeon, Pittsburg, 1865; Silbee’s Lyceum, Philadelphia, July 21, 1851; Gaiety, New Orleans, Nov. 7, 1854; Adelphi, San Francisco, May, 1851; Sandford’s Opera House, Philadelphia, 1851; Winter Garden, New York, March 23, 1867; Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, April 2, 1820; Columbia Museum, Boston, January 15, 1807; Park Theatre, New York, 1848; City Museum, Philadelphia, Nov., 1868; Academy of Music, New York, May 22, 1866; Butler’s American Theatre, Fifth Avenue, New York, January 1, 1872; Waverly, New York, 1872; Adelphi, Boston, February 4, 1871; and theatres during the Chicago fire, Oct. 8 and 9, 1871; Arch Street Opera House, March 20, 1872, and Barnum’s Hippodrome, December 24, 1872.