A SAD STORY.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 990, 29 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 catastrope, 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 in her room in a. 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 stmt her only son, a lad of eighteen, to Vienna to study medicine. Ho wrote home so regularly that when the news of the Ring Theatre fire reached Gotha, the city where the mother lived, and no letter came to reassure her, she immediately travelled to Vienna, and all her worst feats were confirmed, for she found her hoy among the dead whom it was possible to identify. Her companion during this melancholy journey was a daughter of seventeen, her only child after the death of her son. This girl’s 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 fiesh grave which had closed over her daughter. It is not probable that the bereaved mother came here with the intention of committing suicide, for she bought, several articles immediately after her arrival, which she would not felt the want of had she meditated death-. But, on returning from the church - yard at night, she gave the chambermaid five Amins, and, when the latter refused to accept them, said she shoni 1 not want the money any more, and pressed it upon the reluctant girl. An open letter to the Mayor of Vienna explained that she did not think life worth living without her children, and that the money found in her hag should be devoted to the expenses of her burial. v She begged that she might be interred beside her son. The Mayor gave orders that she should be buried in the same grave as her son. The deceased was not quite fifty years old, and was the widow of v, merchant named Fetter. By order of the Mayor of Vienna, a gigantic wreath of palm branches and rare flowers was deposited on All Souls’ Day upon the large common grave of the victims of the Ring Theatre fire who could not be identified by relations or friends. A catafalque was erected upon the grave, surrounded by shrubs and flowers, and by a hundred large wax-lights in chandeliers. The catafalque bore the inscription, “Bth Dec., 188,1,” which was read by thousands whs surrounded the grave on the Ist and 2nd November. In the evening of 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 deceives itself into the bfdief that by crying on this particular day it honours the dead.