The Copenhagen Disaster.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1572, 3 December 1885, Page 2

The Copenhagen Disaster.

A correspondent of the Daily News at Stockholm sends fuller details of the terrible calamity which occurred there when Christine Nilsson was visited by the populace of her native city : — " Madame Nilsson had just finished her song, and after bowing good ni»ht to the enthusiastic crowd had loft the oalcony, when the immense mass of people outside the Grand Hotel — some say about 50,000 — began to rush towards Charles the Twelfths-square. In vain a large force of constables tried to check thorn ; m vain were the screams of women and children that they were being killed ; and sudden fear seemed to have taken possession of the crowd ; everyone rushed forward, knocking over whom he could, or being knocked over himself. It was a horrid scene. During more than fifteen inintues the air was fillpd with cries and groans from women and children who were being trampled Ito death. With these sounds mingled ! those terrifying lamentations that burst from a crowd where a great disaster takes place. In the clear moonlight, men and women, some with their dresses torn and their hair untied, were seen fighting for their lives as maniacs ; while here a lifeless old woman, there a young girl, were carried away. The dead and wounded were carried into the hotels, and into the nearest houses, whore a staff of physicians had work to do the whole night. At present it is known ♦.hat 18 persons, mostly women, have been killed, and 29 seriously wounded ; but several are still missing, and it is feared some were drowned m the canal opposite the Grand Hotel. Mdrae Nilsson was first informed of the calamity the next morning, and wa3 so overpowered by emotion that she became very ill. She had distributed many thousand kroner to the wounded, and will pay all tha expenses of th,e funerals of the killed.