A DEATH-TRAP.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1916, Page 4

A DEATH-TRAP.

WHAT MIOUT HAVE TIAPPF.XFD. ''lt is a good thing the fire, did not occur when the theatre was full of people, say between the hours of 8 and 10 p.m. on Friday," said an eye-witness of the fire who was early on the scene. "I shudder to think what would have happened. The fire developed with incredible rapidity. In three minutes from the time the flames were visible the theatre was a blazing mass, out of which no one could have come out alive. With all its exits the theatre could not have emptied a. big audience inside seven or ten minutes. Half of the people would never have got out alive. I feel absolutely sure of that, flic wind was. of course, blowing from the right direction, lip from the King Street end of the building, and fanning the flames. The old wood was like tinder, and burned furiously. As I say, the whole place was gone inside three minutes.

"The Council should never have licensed the building;. It was a veritable ilcath-trnp, and the lire should lie a warning to the Council in future, to see that every wooden building, church or otherwise, used for public assemblage, sis well as hotels and boarding houses, shall have the utmost provision for escape from fire. As a matter of fact, the Council should prohibit the use of wooden buildings for public entertainment. As for me, after what I saw at 2.7 a.m. on Saturday, I shall ncvei attain in this or any other town enter a wooden hall or hotel, if I can help it. It would oe tempting Providence. Xew I'lymonth can congratulate itself that it has not to mourn the loss of many valuable lives. The theatre, though representing a material h>;,.-, to the owners, and putting the trivn to inconvenience, is well out of the way. As it was, it represented nothing short of a deathtrap." This view was endorsed by Superintendent Bellringcr, who, talking to a News' representative, stated that lie had been in tear and trembling over the theatre for many years, especially when the building was full. "I am really glad the menace is removed," lie said. "The ownvis always thought I was unduly hard on them and demanded too much, but you can now see my reason. If t'ie lire had broken out when the theatre was crowded, as it is on a Saturday, and we could not have got at it in its incipient stage, and the wind blowing as it was, there would have been a holocaust."