Danger of Fire in Theatres.

Danger of Fire in Theatres.

Theatres may be said to combine within their walls all the risks known to the Fire Service, for they represent factories where work of a most diversified kind is carried on, and where both open and close fires are in constant use. The number of persons employed in the various workshops of a large theatre is to the uninitiated quite marvellous. Carpenters and “property-men” (those clever workmen who can make everything, from a bunch of carrots to a railroad train) represent a constant source of danger from fire, in that they deal with inflammable material, and require the aid of heat for their size and glue. It is obviously important in a little kingdom where all is make-believe—where the most solid masonry is wood and canvas, where the greenest trees are as dry as tinder, where even limpid streams are flimsy muslin, nay, where the moon itself is but a piece of oiled calico— that there should be no mistake about the reality of the precautions against accidental fire.

Theatres may be said to combine within their walls all the risks known to the Fire Service, for they represent factories where work of a most diversified kind is carried on, and where both open and close fires are in constant use. The number of persons employed in the various workshops of a large theatre is to the uninitiated quite marvellous. Carpenters and “property-men” (those clever workmen who can make everything, from a bunch of carrots to a railroad train) represent a constant source of danger from fire, in that they deal with inflammable material, and require the aid of heat for their size and glue. It is obviously important in a little kingdom where all is make-believe—where the most solid masonry is wood and canvas, where the greenest trees are as dry as tinder, where even limpid streams are flimsy muslin, nay, where the moon itself is but a piece of oiled calico— that there should be no mistake about the reality of the precautions against accidental fire.