SHOCKINGSCENE AT A FIRE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1996, 17 July 1880, Page 4

SHOCKINGSCENE AT A FIRE.

o [PHB PSBSS AS3OOIATIOH SPEOIAIi WIEB.] BLENHEIM, July 16. At an early hour tbia morning the Woolpack Inn, Eenwiok Town, occupied by Mr G-eorge Stevenson, was completely destroyed by fire. One man perished in the flames, and four othors sustained injuries of a serious nature. The origin of the fire is unknown. It appears to have broken out in one of the bedrooms. There were twenty persons in the house at the time. The alarm was given by Messrs Mclvor and Thomas. This was the prelude to an undesoribable scene of dismay. Stevenson, who was in the upper storey, escaped by the back staircase, ond Mrs Stevenson and children, who occupied the downstairs, were taken out through the window. The headway made by the flames cut off all means of escape from within to the awakened Bloepers, and one by one they were compelled to break through the windows and jump to tho ground. Ouo man named Mason jumped hastily from his bed and made a rush to tho door. He had scarcely opened it, when a scorching tongue of flame dashed "into his face and drove him back. Mason, momentarily staggered by the shock, made for the window, which was just above the roof of the kitchen, and catching hold of the frame was endeavoring to wrench it out -rrhon the flames caught his hands, and rendered them useless. Fearing to be smothered, he butted at the window head foremost, and, bursting through it, fell on the roof of the kitchen, and from thence bounded on to an iron grating below, his head being the first part of him to sustain the shock. Ho was picked up in a senseless condition, and conveyed to a dwelling close by, where he now lies in a very Bad Btate, his face and hands being all burnt and bruised and his head cut. In a back room of the left wing of the building slept a man named Moses Cartwright and his mate. "What took place in that little room when the alarm of fire spread no one can. say, not even the aurvivor, who has no recollection of anything «lse but that ef seeing a great blaze of light. How ho left the room and succeeded in making hi 3 escape he hea not the remotesb idea. All that the spectators saw was the figure of a man dash against one of the upper windows arjd fall heavily to tho ground outside the house. He was taken to Mr Mclvor'e house, where it was found that, besides sustaining a terrible scorching, his left arm wds broken, and he had a terrible gash under the chin, as from a pano when breaking through tho window. On being questioned, he said he believed that he left Moses Cartwright in the room, but could not speak with certainty on the point. It was at the time thought that Cartwright had made his esoapo, one or two persons in tho crowd stating that they had seen someone leaving the house who was believed to bo Oiirtwright. This unfortunately proved untrue, and a few charred human remains found in the debris later on, told their own Bad tale. The insurances wero as follows:—On the building, £3OO in the Union. £IOO in the National, £250 in tho New Zealand ; on tho furniture, £2OO in the Union, £SO in the New Zealand; stock in trade, £IOO in tho Union ; stable, £IOO in the same office; billiard table, £l2O in the Victoria.