TERRIBLE SOENE AT A FIRE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1104, 22 June 1883, Page 4

TERRIBLE SOENE AT A FIRE.

The American papers contain accounts of a fatal fire which occurred I TPsitlenco -of a, planter named Cronise, at Frederick, by which his wife and one of his childion lost their lives. AVtout midnight Mr Cronise and his wife, who slept on the upper storey, were awakened by the smell of stnoke.£!i The house was a twol storey old time loghouse, but of good dimensions. A single stairway led from the lower to the upper storey. On this second floor there slept, besides Mr and Mrs Cronise, their several ■children, the eldest nineteen and the youngest two, and an old and dear dumb man, named Henry Plumhef Upon awakening Mr Cronise rushed down the stairway, and opening the door was met by a perfect sheet of flame. He realised the position of those dependent on him at once, and dosing the door directed his wife to smash one of the several small windows (about 16 by 20 inches) and let the smoke escape. The children, who were all partially suffocated, were helped by their parents through the window, the eldest dropping to the ground fifteen feet below. Then the turn of the little ones came. Mrs Cionise told her husband to jump from window and she would drop the younger children down to him and would than follow. Mr Cronise did as requested, and all the little ones had safely landed in their father’s arms but one, a five-year-old girl, whom her mother had in her arms and was just in the act of putting her through the window. Then like a flash tie deaf and dumb man darted between them and the window and getting half way-out, hung there in his terror unable to move,’ and blocking the window from ihe brave mother and child. The husband and children below in safety gazed upon the terrible scene, ben-urm ed in their night dresses by the furious winds, and almost petrified by terror, for Mrs Cronise could not reach and other window. She wildly beat the terrified old man upon the hands to*make?l)im|leave himposition and drop to the ground below, so that she might save herself and her -child. Those below shrieked to the old man to drop, hut he could not hear, andj’still hung and blocked the window,^ The poor woman tore at him madly, but to no purpose, for a few moments later she sank out of her husband’s and children’s sight into the flames behind her, her child clasped to her bosom. ' A moment later theyjkicked the Sold man’s arms, face, and chest, and shrivelled his grey hair, when he se'uiK d to come to life and dropped to the ground. When his wife and child sank back in the flames Mr Cronise made a rush to the house, which was then tumbling in, and it took the united efforts of his eldest boys to save him from perishing with her. By this time a few neighbors were arriving, one of whom, Eliza Hutchinson, took the family, who were almost naked, to her house across the hills, and provided them with nourishment and clothing.