FIRE PANICS. Are Churches in Danger?

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1904, Page 6

FIRE PANICS. Are Churches in Danger?

THE Corporation, taught by the Chicago theatre fire, desire that no conflagration-induced panic shall take place m any of Wellington's public buildings, and they have included churches in the category Naturally, the ministers feel aggrieved that their churches should be classed with play-houses, and, we think, with excellent reason. No one m recent times has seen a Wellington church congregation that could get up a destructive panic, for congregations are not as a rule crowded ones m the Empire City. * * * One doesn't notice any over-crowd-ing of the aisles, or the necessity of intervention by Mr. Doyle. Also, there is no "scenery," or calcium lights, explosives, or "through drafts" in the churches. Nobody smokes, either m the body of the buildings or in the vestry. Church fires are very rare, and the occasion will have to be an extraordinary one — the presence of a noted revivalist, for instance—when the average congregation couldn't get out of a church building m two> minutes. * * * Nearly every church in Wellington seats the larger part of the congregation on the ground-floor, domg away with the possibility of blocked staircases. The chaars or pews are fixed, and, m the remote possibility of a panic, they would scarcely assist m the slaughter On the whole, we think that the idea of bringing the churches! into line with theatres is a wee bit farcical and unnecessary If there was any case quotable in. which an average congregation had been seized with fire panic, and life had been lost, we should believe that the precaution was necessary, but where the provision of extra exits would mean the nimble circulation of the collection-boxes and a drawing on small church funds the idea seems to be unnecessarily cruel. * * * When one considers that nearly all theatre fires begin "behind," and that there is no "behind" at all in churches, that people do not crowd churches, and that the "properties" are not so inflammable as the theatrical kind, the hardship 1 is apparent The great difficulty in Wellington — it has been admitted by the clergy — is to draw sufficient people to comfortably fill the houses of worship, and it is presumable that the clergy would be more than pleased to get a crowd big enough to be considered dangerous by the Corporation's inspector. * ♦ * The average church is safer than the average school, in which there are more lives, and as precious, to be saved m case of fire. Still, neither the Corporation nor the Education Board think it necessary to "fill" the schools with exits. The churches can't afford to pay for alterations unless they are, like theatres, paid for seats, and, as the danger is very shadowy indeed, we hope, with the deputation that waited on the Mayor, that no hardships in the way of unnecessary expense will be forced upon struggling congregations in Wellington with limited resources