A HINT TO ARCHITECTS.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 146, 30 June 1883, Page 228

A HINT TO ARCHITECTS.

The public have again been startled by news of many lives being lost in a city in Italy during the rush from a show-room in which fire had broken out. This sad event happening so soon after the still more melancholy occurrence which so recently took place in Sun'derland, England, seriously raises the question whether a more effective remedy cannot be found for diminishing the risk to life and limb involved on all large concoiu'ses of people in public buildings. In the ease of both, these disasters, the lamentable consequences arose, as they invariably do arise, not from the panic caused by fire or the cry of fire, but from the ways of egress becoming choked. In the eagerness of the multitude to escape, the doors either cannot be opened or, having been opened, get closed again by the pressure of human beings, and then the hecatomb begins. Now, the simple and only effective prevention of such heartrending scenes is an inexorable adherence to the rule of making all the doors, both outer and inner, in all public buildings ojten outwards. Tho very rush to escape danger would then keep the outlets free instead of, as now, rendering egress impossible. When will our architects acquire common sense and humanity enough to depart from their antiquated ideas on this vital point? If they will prove intractable, the city authorities and the Legislatures in all countries ought to see to the passing of a law requiring that this simple remedy against risk be provided in all buildings designed for public assemblages, whether they "be schools . ov halls, churches or theatres.