MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE AT WAKAPUAKA.

Evening Star, Issue 3445, 7 March 1874, Page 3

MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE AT WAKAPUAKA.

On Thursday morning, Mr Fuller, a very old and respected resident of the Wakapuaka district, met his death under the following unexpected and melancholy circumstances. The day was a general holiday, but tew persons were about, and this in a great measure accounts for the disastrous even which followed Mr Fuller sat himself outside his house, close to a gorse hedge, and ht his pipe, casting aside the lighted match, which ignited the grass round him without attracting his attention. The fire presently reached the gorse hedge, and then, but too late, Mr Fuller was aroused to action. Having nothing beside him to beat out the fire, he had to expend some little time in procuring an instrument lor the purpose, and appears to have left the spot and returned with a grubber, with which he endeavored to check the progress of the flames. In doing this, the excited and feeble old man twice fell into the burning gorse, and became enveloped in the flames, for upon his reaching the house shortly af er (giving the fprat intimation they had of the occurrence], it was found that his \yere to

tinder, his general clothing destroyed, his baotrvery badly burnt, the akin was peeling off his hands, and he was terribly burnt in various parts of the body. Such of the neighbors as the holiday had left at home assisted to put out the fire, and some passers by rendered valuable aid to the efforts that had to be made to prevent the fire extending to a greater extent amongst the adjoining properties. A bout forty chains of fencing and gorse hedge were destroyed, but the bouse escaped. A messenger despatched for medical assistance brought Dr Farrelle promptly to the spot with all the usual medical appliances, but from the first the case was a hopeless one, and the sufferer died at six o clock the following morning. De* ceased was a very old settler, having arrived here in 1841.— ‘ Colonist.'