Fatal Fire in Wellington.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 259, 6 May 1895, Page 2

Fatal Fire in Wellington.

[Per Press Association.!, Wellington, May 5. Mrs Patrick and her two-year-old son, the victims of Friday night's fire, have succumbed to the severe burns. The mother died this morning at 4 o'clock. At the time of the fire when Mrs Patrick was removed to the air by Messrs Moroney and James Houghan, her burnt clothes peeled off, and with them the skin on the greater portion of her body, arms, and legs. Her hair, also, upon being touched fell from the scalp. Patrick's condition is so serious that his depositions have been taken in the hospital. Witness said his real surname was Bell, but he had adopted that of his stepfather, Mr Patrick, a butcher, of Dunedin. He had been out of work for eight or nine weeks. On Friday he returned home tired at 6*30 p.m., and soon after undressed and lay down with his child in order to get him to sleep, leaving Mrs Patrick up and dressed. There was a lighted candle on a chair close to the bed where he slept. When he woke up the bedclothes and wallpaper were on fire and bis wife and child were also on fire on the bed. He got up and ran about the room, but remembered no more till he was being lifted from the floor. He had no money in the house. He was not drunk, neither was his wife. She took a glass of beer or porter daily on medical advice.