COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL, BURNED.

COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL, BURNED.

During the recent convention of the Trades congress in Bristol, England, the sessions were held in Colston hall, a magnificent building, and one of the ornaments of the city. Before the congress had concluded its labors, the hall was burned down, and. with it, all the records of the proceedings, voting cards of the delegates,and many other documents which it will be impossible to replace.

The fire broke out in Clarke's clothing factory adjoining the hall, and had there been anything approaching to a sufficient supply of water, the probabilities are that the blaze would have been stopped right there. The officers of the fire brigade were slow to recognize the danger to the hall, and it was not till the flames had begun to lick its walls and roof, that they called in the aid of some steamfloats in the harbor, some hundred yards away. By the time these had got to work the building was well alight and its preservation an impossibility. From a spectacular point of view, the scene was a grand one. Great tongues of flame shot into the darkness, aud illuminated the old city, with its remnants of quaint architecture, for a quarter of a mile round, and showing up in a weird and fitful way, the city’s famous old spires and towers. In the hall itself the stained glass windows were lit up and showed out effectively as the flames raged within. Soon the $15,000 organ went and then followed the crash of the falling galleries, culminating in one more deafening as the roof fell in. Close by the burning building were a large number of old houses, each a veritable tinderbox and firetrap, in which dwelt many of the honest class of workingmen and women and their families. The good work of the firemen saved these antiquated tenements, from which all the dwellers had been driven out by the police. The clothing factory was also destroyed, whereby some 2,000 workpeople were thrown out of employment, and St. Joseph’s school and several private houses were badly damaged. Inside the hall is a medley of tangled iron work and burned wood. Of the rich tapestries, flags, and regalias lent by the ancient guilds of the city not a vestige is left—an irreparable loss.