A SAD STORY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3588, 11 January 1883, Page 4

A SAD STORY.

The Vienna correspondent of the Daily News writes: — Among the thousands who on All Saints' Day visited the graves of the poor victims of the' Ring Theatre catastrophe, a lady in deep mourning was remarked, who for hours knelt beside a grave which she had decked with wreaths of flowers. This poor lady was found dead iv her room in an hotel on the day following, and papers found in her desk proved that she had committed suicide, and explained the reason why she had done so. About a year and a-half ago the widowed mother sent her only son, a lad of eighteen, to Vienna to, study medicine. He wrote home so regularly that when the news of the Ring Theatre lire reached Gotha, the city where the mother lived, and no letter came to reassure her, she immediately travelled to Vienna, and all her worst fears were confirmed, for she found her boy among the dead whom it was possible to indentify. Her companion during this melancholy journey was a daughter of seventeen, her only child after the death of her son. The girls affection for her brother was so strong that she fell into a decline after his death, and two months ago the mother knelt at a fresh grave, which had closed over her daughter. It is not probable that the bereaved mother came here with the intention of committing .suicide, f or she bought several articles immediately after her arrival which she would not have felt the ■want of had she meditated death. But on returning from the churchyard at night she gave the chambermaid five florins, and when the latter refused to accept them, said she should not want the money any more, and pressed it upon the reluctant girl. An open letter to the Mayor of Vieniici explained that she did not think life worth living without her children, and that the money found in her bag should be devoted to the expenses of her burial. She begged that she might bo interred beside her son. The Mayor gave orders that she should beburriedinthe samegravcasherson. The deceased was not quite fifty years old, and was the widow of a merchant named Better. By order of the Mayor of Vienna v gigantic wreath- of palm branches and flowers was deposited on All Souls' Day upon the large conunon grave of the victims of the Ring Theatre fire who could not be indent-Hied by relations.or friends. A catafalque was erected upon the grave, surrounded by shrubs aud flowers, and by a hiindred large wax-lights in chandeliers.

The catafalque bore the inscription "Bth December, 1881," which was read by thousands who .surrounded the grave on the Ist and 2nd of November. In the evening ot both those days it is the custom for the Viennese to visit the theatres, which one and all give the same piece, "The Miller and his Child," a tale of love, superstition, and death, during which tears flow abundantly, and the audience deceive themselves into the belief that by civing on this particular day they honor their dead.