COLLISION BETWEEN THE CHIMNEYS.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1668, 23 June 1875, Page 2

COLLISION BETWEEN THE CHIMNEYS.

Last night the fall of a couple of high chimneys at the rear of buildings iD Queenstreet, constituted one of those accidents which penny-a-liners invariably say "might have been attended with fatal consequences." In fact that it was not, illustrates in a curious way from what little and queer causes great events may spring. In an angle of a brick building belonging to Mr. D. Nathan stood a fireplace,, with a chimneystalk some twenty feet in. height. On a lower elevation five or six feet away stood a kitchen "lean-to" pertaining to the premises of Mr Shortt, the popular hair-dresser, and in the angle of it a fire-place with a similar chimneystalk. Of its mere motion, and apparently without any provocation, the former chimney leant over on the latter, and the latter went crash through the kitchen roof, leaving a ruin of bricks and mortar, zinc and roof-trees, chairs, tables, couches, and kitchen furniture generally, in one undistinguishable burial blent. A glance at the walls from which the former chimney broke its moorings shows that not much provocation was required. The wall of brick nine inches thick consisted of two vertical walls of single bricks without apparently a single brick across to bind them, and the mortar has perhaps thetenacity of unbaked clay. An idea has been hazarded that a small piece of stick inserted an inch into the wall, and connected with a pigeon- house, did all the mischief, but no crack above or below the insertion. gives colour to the idea. The brickwork fell from its own rottenness. As the kitchen I was the usual rendezvous of the family of Mr Shortt after business hours, and the time "of the accident was the usual hour f supper, the escape had been a very narrow one. The servant had just gone upstairs to attend to the children before the crash, but ,the absence of Mr and Mrs Shortt was more remarkable still. It appears that their safety is entirely owing to Mr 3?. H. Lewisson, who accordingly and very naturally regards himself to-day as having served a great purpose in carrying out the moral government of the universe. It appears Sir Lewisson had met Mr Shortt in his evening perambulation, and, believing that a glass of bser would be as beneficial to him as many a plass of beer had been to Mr Lewisson, he urged him to accompany him to the "Cottage of Content." Mr Shortt, being a man of abstemious and domesticated habits, was anxious to return home, bat Mr Lewistti/n's Well-known determination, when he Lakes a thing in hand, overcame the objections, and Mr Shortt accompanied him. Again and again, at the Union Bank and up Victoria-street did Mr Shortt's home feelings struggle for the mastery,; but Mr Lewisson's hospitality prevailed. They went into the cottage of Content, and had a glass of beer ; and then they had another. Only two, 'pon our honor, but they whiled away the time in friendly chat, while in other ! circumstances Mr tehortt would have been supping in the bosom of his family under i the shade of that ill-starred chimney. Now |we shall not say all that Mr Lewisson says, but he wants to know if he was not an instrument in the hand of Providence. And he wante to know what the Good Templars will say about that glass of beer. Had Mr Shortt not listened to the voice of the tempter, he would have been a dead man. Mr Lewisson therefore argues that that glass of beer saved the life of a valued citizen who with his partner in life would have been crushed under the ruin. We recommend the Independent Order to look after Mr Lewisson, for from his point W avantage, he is doing grievous harm to their Order to-day with this his invincible argument in favour of a glass of beer. There cannot be a doubt in the world that it was Mr Shortt's consenting to accompany him to the Cottage o! Content that saved from destruction, but whether that is an argument, as urged by Mr Lewisson, that no man should refuse' when he is asked to take a glass of beer, we leave to be fought out between Mr. Lewisson and the Good Templars. As for the collision between the chimneys we presume it will form the subject of. let>al investigation, and will doubtless prove a companion case to the world-renowned trial, versus Boatum," and "Boatum versus Bullum,"