PORT CHALMERS FIRE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2127, 9 July 1907, Page 1

PORT CHALMERS FIRE.

STATEMENT BY HABERFIELD. Press Association. DUNEDIN, yesterday. Further details of the. Port Chalmers fire show that lvathleen Helm, aged U, died in hospital last evening, after great suffering from burns, making three lives lost. William li.aberlield supplies the following narrative: “I came from the Blufl about three weeks ago to work on the new graving dock at the Port. My poor wife only arrived last Tuesday, and w: only took that house for tlio time being. I came back from stoncci ashing at tile dock at 9 o’clock on Saturday night, and went to bed after putting out the fire, al'ul with ii:.v wife talked about our prospects till about midnight. We had no light burning, and 1 fell off to sleep. I remember nothing more till 1 was awakened by a loud crackling, and -1 saw a volume of suffocating smoke coining in the bedroom door. Jumping out of heel 1 found a great column of fire running up the staircase, writhing round the banisters, and licking the paper on the walls. Our escape was cut off, and as the smoke was suffocating, I ran to the window, and, smashing the glass, looked out. There was not a soul in sight. Tongues of fire were darting in at the door. There was not a moment

to he lost, and shouting to my wife to throw the children to me and then follow herself, I jumped out of the window. I was crazed with agony, and do not remember reaching the ground. All the windows glowed red with the fire that rawed within, and

I kept crying out, ‘Oh, my wife and child.’ but not one seemed to hear me. 1 shouted out to her to make haste with the children, but there was no reply, only smoke rolling heavilv through the broken .glass. 1 then scaled the side of tlio house. How I managed it I cannot tell. 1 was mad witli grief and fear lor my wife and children. I reached the windowsill and beat in tho sash with my fists. Choking and blinded I looked into tlio room, and trod right on the prostrate, body of my sister-in-law. My head seemed bursting, and 5 could not breathe, though I heard voices in the street below, so, seizing the child, I threw her out of the window, in the hope that someone might la waiting below to catch her. There wore no signs of my wife or little hoy. 1 was on the point of suffocating, and reeling to the window fell out of it and remember no more. Oh, my poor wife and child, burnt to death, it is too horrible, and will drive me crazy. It was the oldest house in Port Chalmers. There was no fire escape. It was infested with rats from top to bottom, and they might have caused the fire by dragging away loose matches. AVe had made such plans, and this is tile end of it. My wife njul liov will not

lie feeling pain again; that’s one good tiling. She eaine from Moeraki, poor girl, and she and the hoy will pollack there to he buried. lam in Hie Druids’ Lodge, and am thankful for the same.” AVilliam Haberfield is 27 years old. His grandfather arrived at Moeraki in 1830, and married a Maori woman, and Haberfield is a respectable, hard-working man, devoted to his wife and faniilv. His

parents reside at Greenhill, near the Bluff. Mrs Haberfield has been married before, and the child that was burnt with her was the youngest child of her first husband. Haberfield’s condition is not serious.