3-071-232 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Burning of the Ring Theatre, Vienna: how some were saved - from a sketch by A. August Schönauer, 1881. 'A terrible disaster...took place at Vienna on the Thursday evening of last week. This was the burning of the "Ring" Theatre, which was called by that name from standing in the "Ring," one of the most frequented parts of the Austrian capital on Thursday, the 8th December, when several hundreds of the audience suffered a miserable death...some of the survivors were enabled to make their escape, by leaping from the front balcony into a large sheet of strong elastic cloth, held by the men of the Fire Brigade in the street below...The elastic sheet alone was the means of rescuing more than a hundred persons of both sexes, courageous enough to spring upon it from a height of sixty feet. These were the only lives saved, directly or indirectly, by the brigade, which made no effort to enter the burning house until the unfortunate people within had all perished. This fatal passiveness is not ascribed to any lack of courage or enterprise in the force itself, but to the impression...that all the occupants of the upper part of the house had escaped by the side staircases into the street, and that there was really no one left in the house to save'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.