FIRE IN DURHAM STREET.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1661, 17 June 1879, Page 2

FIRE IN DURHAM STREET.

Shortly before six o’clock this morning the alarm bell in Lichfield street gave warning that a fire had broken out in the south quarter of the city, and it was soon discovered that the locality of the conflagration was a lodging house known as the Hereford Boarding House, kept by Mrs Margaret Drury. Prom enquiries made it appears that the inmates of the house consisting of Mi’s Drury, a young lady named Ebbett, four other boarders, and a servant retired to rest about midnight, and a small fire was left burning in the parlor and kitchen. About the hour previously named the sleepers were awakened by the crackling of firejin the ground floor of'the premises, and so quickly did it spread that there was barely time for escape. Mrs Drury and the servant, who were sleeping in a back room on the ground floor, made their escape out of the window in their night dresses, there being no time to put on any clothing. The boarders smashed the glass and sashes of th© upper windows, and jumped out similarly clad. None were much hurt, but Miss Ebbett, who sprained her ancle, and the others, who sustained some cuts on their hands from the broken glass. Mrs Drury and Miss Ebbett obtained shelter in a neighbor’s house, and the others were supplied with clothing from the British Hotel opposite, and also from some sympathising residents in the vicinity, who attended to their immediate needs. From the rapidity with which the flames spread, the services of the Fire Brigade, who, with Mr Superintendent Harris and a body of Police, were quickly on the spot, were unavailing to render any effective assistance. A neighboring cottage occupied by an elderly couple, named Simpson, caught fire in the roof, but the water was got on and. extinguished it before it obtained much hold. It is impossible to conjecture how the fi'e commenced, but it is surmised that it must have originated from the dying embers in the parlor grate. The building, which was leased by Mr E. M. Mein from Mr F. A. Bishop, was insured in the National Insurance Office for £225, and the furniture in the transatlantic for £2OO. Mrs Drury’s furniture, it is said, was quite equal in value to the sum for which it wa» insured, but the unfortunate lodgers have lost their all, even to their very wearing apparel. This is only another painful instance of the disastrous consequences which may arise from inattention to proper precautions for the prevention of fires in tke night.