Jerome Hopkins’s Orpheon Benefit Concert: 6th

“The cold snap and Philharmonic Society together did not seem to exert any sensible effect toward diminishing the usual fashionable assemblage at Mr. Hopkin’s sixth concert at Apollo Hall on Saturday night. The attendance was large and the programme the best Mr. Hopkins has yet offered. The two Misses Perring were the female vocalists of the concert and evinced a degree of ability and culture which was highly gratifying. These young ladies are the daughters of the well-known tenor, Mr. J.E. Perring, and fully sustained the enviable reputation of their father.

The pianist of the occasion. Mr. Hopkins was warmly welcomed on his appearance and his performance of Richard Hoffman’s ‘Rigoletto’ fantasie, encored. The pianist also played his two duets for two pianos, ‘The Sea Spray Waltz’ and the ‘Sepoy March’ with Mdlle. Zepherine, and both artists were recalled. With this concert Mr. Hopkins has brought his fifth season to a brilliant close.”

“Mr. Jerome Hopkins’s sixth and last concert in Aid of the Orpheon Society’s Free Choral School Fund, was given on Saturday night, at Apollo Hall, Broadway and Twenty-eighth-st. The performers were Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Griswold, Mlle. Zepherine, Miss Agnes Perring, Miss Laura Perring, and Mr. Pollak. The house was well filled, and although there was a little exhibition of ill-manners on the part of a few people in the galleries, the audience were quiet and appreciative. This is due, in part, perhaps, to the hint printed in the programmes; ‘The observance by the audience of perfect quietness during the music is earnestly enjoined, as the artists reserve the privilege of considering any infringement of this regulation as an invitation for them to abruptly leave the stage. The least whisper will be considered a gross rudeness.

We respectfully call the attention of the Inspector of Buildings to the great want of a mode of safe egress form Apollo Hall. The Hall is on the second floor of a large building in which on certain nights, there are from 1,500 to 2,500 persons. The flights of stairs of moderate width lead to the front door (there is but one), and when the people from the dancing room and the audience from Apollo Hall, and the occupants of other apartments meet at the head of the stairway, the crush is sometime frightful, and the chances for reaching the street in case of fire, are very slight. There is but one entrance to Apollo Hall; it opens upon a sort of corridor, about four feet wide, which ends hear the head of the first flight of stairs. Through this corridor it is impossible for more than four persons to pass abreast, and it can be readily seen that a crowd of 2,000 people in Apollo Hall during an alarm of fire could not possibly escape fire without serious loss of life. On Saturday night the audience numbered about 1,100. The hall was nine minutes and a half in being emptied. Had there been the slightest panic among the people the single exit would have been blocked up, and the crushing of two or three hundred women and children would have been inevitable. Apollo Hall is, in short, is an [?] for a public exhibition, and should be closed by the proper authorities until the owners multiply its exits and entrances, widen the staircases, and in otherwise [?] arranged, [?] the whole building, filled to its utmost [?], [?] be cleared in five minutes’ time without danger to life or limb.”