Victoria Hall Disaster - THE GRAPHIC - SAMPLE TEXT
'THE SUNDERLAND TRAGEDY. - Perhaps the most distressing thought of all in connection with the awful tragedy at Sunderland, is that it might have been so easily rendered impossible. Had a couple of attendants been stationed at the exit from the gallery, with orders to allow the children to pass out only in small contingents, with intervals between each batch, it is morally certain that nothing in the shape of fatal crushing could have occurred. As matters were, nothing but a miracle could have carried the whole of the excited children safely into the open air. We doubt, indeed, whether, even if the door had remained open to the full extent, some lives would not have been sacrificed. It takes little to create a life-and-death struggle when some hundreds of little ones are rushing along narrow passages and down steep flights of stairs, half-maddened by the thought that, if they do not make haste, they will be too late to participate in a promised distribution of prizes. The slightest check, such as might be caused by two or three children falling at any spot, would suffice to set up a fatal obstacle to the wild stampede. This, then, seems to have been the primary cause of the calamity which has filled Sunderland with heart-broken mourners - the absence of attendants at the exit from the gallery, to regulate the children's departure. As regards the door below, the moral to be drawn is, we think, that neither bolts, nor locks, nor fastenings of any sort should be allowed on passage-doors inside large places of public entertainment. Whether they are made to open inwards, or outwards, or on the swing either way, it is now conclusively demonstrated that a single bolt may as effectually block a passage as the most efficient anti-burglar contrivances. It can scarcely be doubted, either, that the bit of iron which was directly instrumental in causing the deaths of nearly 200 poor children had been fixed to the door for the purpose of restricting the means of ingress or egress. The fact that there was a socket in the boards underneath for it to be shot into, and that, when this is done, a space of only 18 inches in width remained for people to pass through, is eminently suggestive of a contrivance for the convenience of money-takers.'
