BURNED TO DEATH.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 22 September 1880, Page 2

BURNED TO DEATH.

(by telegraph.) Hokitika, September 22. Constable Stephenson, stationed at Kanieri, reported this moynjng a horrible death by burning of a. woman named jlVfargaret Hutoheson and her infant child four ' months old as follows :—David Hutcheson stated to him that his wife and child had been burned to death the previous night at their house on Tuckers flat, a short distance from ifanieri township. The constable visited the place and found the remains of a body. Both legs and one arm were burned away and the head partly consumed. No trace of the jnfaqt could be found. The hp.ygfi consisted 6f two rooms only. At o'clock last evening, David Hutoheson. returned from Kanieri and found his wife lying on a j stretcher in the kitchen, the front room i and the baby in a cradle alongside the stretcher. No conversation took place between him and his wife, and the former went into the back room where there were five'children asleep. He then retired to rest, leaving his wife and baby in the front room, in which room there was a little fire anda lighted kerosene lamp on the table. At about 3 a.m.. he waa awoke by.a glare of light and smoke. ; He called to his wife, but'got nb ! reply.'' He then rushed into■ the frbnt rodiny andfoundi'the roof and 3ide walls all a blaze. He shook his wife, but Bhe never attempted to move. He could ho); get to the front door, which was 'burned; arid'he :! rah 5 back to r the hack room,'.iraised. the window, and had >barely. ; > time to put out the five ohil^ren,-,.who, escaped, . By that time' he found it impossible to? front riiJom Sgain. The neighbors G&, but their The house and'its coppflaedi} to-, pwtei-Z aiii ial adiis#.