FIRE AT INVERCARGILL.

Evening Star, Issue 4055, 24 February 1876, Page 3

FIRE AT INVERCARGILL.

Invebcarqi l, February 24. The night watchman discovered a fire smouldering in the store of Cochi ane and Wenhoorth, grocers, at 10.30 last night. The alarm was immediately given, and the engines so n turned put. The water being plentiful the fire was at once extinguished. It is supposed to have originat din a match being Carelessly thrown down close to a number of of chaff. The damage to the s qck is estimated at L2O, and to the building at LlO. The latter is insu ed in the Liverpool and Gi be for L2OO, and the stock is insured in the South Br tish for LSOO in, the Tcansat antlc fir L3OO, and in the. Standard for L2oHad the fie ob ained a bold a who e block of wooden buildings would have been destroyed.

(From our om Correspondent.,'

Oamartj, February. 24. An inquest into the circumstances attending the late fire at Miligrove was held at the Court house, Moerakr* befoie Mr Leg/jatt, acting Coroner. Selina Julia Hano mb, late gover e-s to Mr Cu’ding’s family, and Mr Culling were the principal witnesses examined. The fire was first noticed by the foimer while ia the schoolhoube, forty ya v ds distant from the homestead, but she did nob give any alarm. She deposed that she overheard one Laura Stewart, who had been dismissed, make this r.mark, “I wlil do for the G d lot of them before the month was upbut she did not see him about Hillgrove on the day of the fire. Mr Culling said Miss Hancock never informed him of the language Stewart had used. The latter was dismissed fir using bad but not threatening language. Miss Hancock read accounts of fires with such evilent pleasure that he had had to hide newspapers from her. The rest of the evidence went to prove that the governess. Miss Hancock, had been seen going into the house a few minutes before the fire. The jury, after deliberation, were unable 1 to ar.ree, and at 10 p.m. they were bound over by the De outy-Coroner, in their own recognisances of LSO each, to appear at the next sitting of the Supreme Court, to be held in Dunedin on the 3rd Aurll next. single girl named Ellen Knox was delivered of a child on Monday last. No doctor or attendant was pres -nt at the confinement, and the child through .some cause was suffocated. An inquiry into the circumstances of the ebi d’s deith tiofc place before the deputy coroner to-day. After he <r-in-?.,the evidence •fMr De 1 -autonr, the inquiry was adjourned to March 16, to allow of the a tendance of the girl Knox (mother of the child), •The harvest is turning out splendidly. The par acre is about the highest ev. r known in the district. The weather continues fine.