On Dec 27, 2011, at 2:30 PM, Tarter, Brent (LVA) wrote:

> Yesterday, 26 December 2011, was the 200th anniversary of the theater
> fire in Richmond that killed more than 70 people, including the  
> governor
> of the state. T

	George Tucker (1775-1861) writes in his Autobiography of

watching the awful tragedy of the burning of the theatre, from which  
I had a narrow escape, and where I was instrumental in saving several  
females from the flames,   I had fortunately quitted the house while  
it was on fire, tho' I did not know the fact, being prompted by what  
I had suffered from the cold about my feet, having dined out that day  
and wearing, as was then the practice, thin shoes and silk  
stockings.  The play was over,  and there appearing to be much delay  
in bringing on the afterpiece, I remarked that 'the pain of cold feet  
was greater than the pleasure of seeing out the play and I would go  
home'--but the cry of fire prevented my reaching my lodgings, and  
hurried me back to witness a spectacle  of human woe which I have  
never seen equalled.



------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
-------------------------------------
Terry L. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, College of William  
and Mary, Williamsburg Virginia  23187				757-221-3932

		http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/

		http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html
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        Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?....  
Well, we can't afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the  
college.
             															 --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."





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