THE FATAL FIRE AT NEWTOWN.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2172, 10 February 1881, Page 3

THE FATAL FIRE AT NEWTOWN.

["New Zealand Times," Feb. 7.]

It is fortunately a long time since the press has had the painful duty of recording so disastrous a fire, attended with so lamentable a loss of life, as that occurring on Saturday night last at Newtown. In a six/roomed cottage »fc the top of Btddiford street, adjoining the Newtown Recreation Ground, lived a carter named Charles Whittington, his wife, and three children, named Herbert Christopher (aged six years), Sarah Olive (aged three years), and Millie, a baby twelve months old. Shortly before eight o'clook on Saturday night the mother left for town, with the intention of purchasing boots for the children, and her husband left the house (looking the doors) somewhat later, in order to meet her on her return by the 9.30 tram. When Mr Whittington left the house the eldest child was sleeping in a separate cot, and the two younger in their parents' bed. No light was left in the bedroom, but in the kitchen a lighted kerosene lamp was upon the table and a small wood fire in the grate. The house (which belonged to Mr Sutherland, of the Wairarapa), was a six-roomed building, the upper portion of which was unocoupied. The husband met his wife at the tramway terminus, and they were returning to their residence when both distinctly detected a smell of burning, but at first without suspicion that their own dwelling was on firo. The agony of the poor mother when, on reaching the top of Newtown, she found the bedroom whioh contained her three only children enveloped in flumes, passes description. Already neighbors—notably Messrs Sage and Hazlewood and a Chinaman—were at work to rescue the poor children, whose screams wore heartrending; but although both the neighbors and the parents were able to get into the kitchen they were beaten back from entering the bedroom by the smoke and flames. _ The elare of the fire was visible in the city at 10.15 p.m., but it was fully fifteen minutes after that time that an alarm was given from the Mount Cook fire bell, and some five minutes or more intervened before the fire bell at the To Aro station took up the alarm. Even then the impression prevailing was that the fire was merely gorse burning on the hills, and in fact the reflection had nearly died away before the Municipal Brigade had started, and In half an hour's time the building, with the exception of the lean-to, was a mass of oharred embers. In the ruins were discovered tne body of the eldest boy, completely baked but still intact; tho trunk merely of the second child, and unidentifiable remains of the baby. To these has to be added a blackened foot belonging to the latter, which was handed to Constable Maebay on the following morning. The remains were, of course, instantly removed to the morgue to await an in quest. Various surmises as to the cause of this fire are afloat, but the strong probability is that some burning embers dropped from the kitchen fire and ignited the partition, on the other side of which the three poor little victims were peacefully sleeping. We understand that the father, on entering the the house, found the lamp burning on the kitchen table precisely as he had loft it, so that surmises as to the lamp capsizing or bursting are useless. It is right to add that considering the distance from town to the scene of the fire it was a wonder that so many firemen, fire police, and salvage men were so quickly on the spot. The efforts of the neighbors to extrioate the ohildren aro stated by eye-witnesses to be worthy of all praise, though unhappily ineffectual. The parents of the dead children are young persons highly respected in Newtown, and the deepest sympathy if felt for them,