a chisel. When they reached the street, the two
men were separated by the falling of the portico,
which killed Mr. Purdy and buried Roberts.
When the latter was dragged out, his shoes and
stockings had to be left behind. Another man,
named George Hoare, observed the wall giving
on the Tuesday, and thought the house
would fall. Just before the accident he saw the
wall " go out" about a foot. As he was preparing
to collect his tools, he was carried away to
the bottom of the house, and remembered
nothing more until he awoke in the London
Hospital.

The indirect escapes were numerous. Mrs.
Vaughan, the mother of the little girl whom
Mr. Farren rescued, had been sent for by the
manager, but did not attend, as she had been at
all the previous rehearsals. Mr. Campbell, one
of the actors, had been to the rehearsal, when
he remembered Mr. Maurice had asked him to
deliver a note in the neighbourhood. He had
not got ten yards from the door before a terrible
crash made him look round, and he saw the
beautiful building he had just quitted, a shapeless
heap of ruins. Mr. Finley, the scene-painter,
who was in his room over the stage, fell with
tremendous violence; but in his descent he
stuck in the balustrade of a staircase that
led from the stage to his room, and was
miraculously saved. Mr. Saker, a low comedian,
his wife and child, were half an hour late at
rehearsal, and were within a few hundred yards
of the theatre when it fell. Mr. Adcock, the
prompter, had just arrived at the end of Grace's-alley,
in Wells-street, directly opposite the
theatre, when he saw the immense building sink
under the heavy roof. He ran back up the
passage, but was for some time speechless.

The front wall fell on the house of Mr. Blatz,
a baker, in Wells-street. Mr. Blatz heard the
crash of the roof, and had time to escape
before the wall fell and partly destroyed his
shop.

The dead were dreadfully mutilated. Mr.
Evans, the editor of the Bristol Mercury and
Observer, a friend of Mr. Maurice, and who was
conversing with him a few minutes before the
accident, was struck by a ponderous beam on
the forehead. His body was for some time
taken for that of Evans, one of the doorkeepers.
Leader, a carpenter, was struck by a beam from
the circular boxes as he was in the act of escaping
from the workshop, and was found dead,
jammed against the staircase, a hammer still
clenched in his right hand.

Mary Anne Fearon, a little girl, one of
the leaders of the ballet, who was on the
Thursday night to have performed in the
Fatal Prophecy, was dreadfully crushed,
and her head almost severed in two. Penfold,
the doorkeeper (a superannuated clerk in the
London Docks), made a desperate attempt to
escape. His body was found on the steps, with
the head towards the street, and the legs
upward.

The wall that fell in Wells-street destroyed
two houses opposite: a public-house and a
baker's: and it also crushed a passing dray and
two horses from Elliot's brewery. A gentleman
passing, had a mass of ruins fall on one of his
legs; but, by a tremendous muscular effort,
drew out his foot and left his boot behind. A
poor old-clothesman, named Levi, from
Petticoat-lane, was reading a play-bill on an opposite
wall, and was crushed by the falling ruins. His
friends could only identify his body by the Table
of Laws (a sort of Jewish talisman) which was
found attached to his breast next his skin. The
unhappy wife of this poor man became insane
from grief.

In all, thirteen persons perished by this accident,
and about twenty more were hurt and
wounded. The street rumour at first was that
one hundred performers had perished, besides
one hundred spectators in the pit. Had the
house fallen on the opening night, some three
thousand persons must have been slain.

Soon after this terrible affair happened, a
party of labourers were sent by Mr. Hardwick,
the architect, then constructing the St. Catherine
Docks, and he himself superintended their
zealous labours. They gradually cleared away
the immense mountain of bricks and broken
timber, beneath which the sufferers' cries could
still be heard at intervals. Towards night
the men became so exhausted that they had to
discontinue their search, in spite of the tears
and entreaties of persons in the crowd whose
relations were still missing.

At last a brave sailor, thinking he heard some
one moaning in a specially dangerous part,
procured a torch, forced an opening, and let himself
down into the chasm. There was a deep and
solemn silence enforced during his chivalrous
search; but he found nothing. On Friday,
more bodies were dug out; on Saturday
the digging was relinquished: Mr. Hardwick
himself having searched the vaults beneath the
orchestra, pit, and stage. The ruin was singular
in appearance. The boards of the stage,
pit, and stage-boxes, were cracked into pieces,
and formed a sort of rude arch. The iron roof
lay like a network over the centre of the
mass, and had entangled itself with the timber.
It was especially noticed by the crowd that the
walls were tall and slight, and that the mortar,
not yet dry, had scarcely left a mark upon the
bricks. The place was visited on Friday by
vast crowds, including the Duke of Argyle and
many persons of distinction, on whom the
pickpockets made great havoc. One Jew-boy was
heard to boast that he had made forty
handkerchiefs that day.

On the Thursday week after the calamity,
a public meeting was held in the London
Tavern, the Lord Mayor in the chair, to set on
foot a subscription for the sufferers. Alderman
Birch, the celebrated pastry-cook, Sir G. Smart,
Mr. Charles Kemble, Mr. Elliston, and Mr.
Fawcett were present. The Duchess of St.
Albans (always generous to the members of her
old profession) subscribed one hundred pounds,
and the Duke fifty. The secretary's statement
showed what terrible suffering the accident