AN AMERICAN POOR-HOUSE HORROR.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 330, 15 June 1878, Page 3

AN AMERICAN POOR-HOUSE HORROR.

Rath (N.Y.j, April building of the Steuben Comity Poor-house, burned on Saturday night was of brick, SQ.by 40 feet, and two stories high. Nearly all the windows were grated, and there was but one mode of egress from cacji story. No night watchman was employed about the building, and there was no fire apparatus. The County House is two miles from Bath, and the fire department did not go out. Aninsane epileptic from Hornellsville, named Ford, who was locked in a cell on the first floor, set lire to his bed with a match, probably obtained from a fellow pauper. All the partitions were of pitch pine, ail'd burned like tinder. The 'cries of Ford aroused the other inmates only after the building was filled with a blinding smoko. The inmate who had Ford in charge opened Ford’s door, and the flames burst out and ran along the partition and up the stovepipe hole into the second storey. Ford could not be seen on account of the flames. He had forced his head between the bars of the window, and, unable to pull it back, was crying for help. The flames poured out of the window around his head, and he perished. The upper storey was occupied by twenty-live women and children, and the lower storey by eighteen men. The majority were idiotic cripples or very aged. Five on the first lloor and ten on the second were burned. At the first alarm Eli Carrington, a keeperprushed out of the main buildings with and knocked in the door at the foot of the stairs leading from the second storey. Eight or ten women were piled up at the foot of the stairs, and a cloud of suffocating smoke rolled down. The women were pulled out, and Carrington started up the stall's, but was driven Lack by the smoke. In five minutes from the time of the alarm, the paupers ceased coming oat, and in halt an hour the roof fell in. The first floor door, loading from the men’s department, was never locked, and no one in the building was locked in a cell except Ford. Five bodies were taken from the ruins, and to-day about two-thirds of th v debris was dug over, and more remains found. Altogether, they would about fill an ordinary-sized coffin. Heads, legs, and arms were entirely burned off, and in most cases but a very small portion of the body could bo found. No blame attaches to any one, but the county is severely censured for providing such a man-trap for its paupers. Before the fire there were 140 paupers in the Comity House. '

War—the trade of barbarism, and the art of bringing the greatest physical force to bear on a single point. Strangers and country settlers coming to Carlyle, are very often at a loss to know which is the best and cheapest General Drapery and Clothing Establishment in the district. E. A. Adams’ Cardigan House, offers special advantages that can be met with nowhere else in the district. He keeps the largest and best assorted stock of every description of drapery goods, imported direct—and from the best colonial houses ; which, being bought on the most advantageous terms, and having thorough knowledge of the business, enables him - to offer goods of sterling quality at prices that cannot be improved on by any other house in New Zealand. Every article is marked in plain figures, - from which there is no deviation ; so that inexperienced people are as well served as the best judges, the terms bring net cash, without rebate or abatement of any land. Note the address—R. A. Adams ; Cardigan House, nearly opposite Town Hall, Carlyle. —advt. Holloway's Pills. —lndigestion.—ln all cases of indigestion, producing weariness, low spirits, palpitation, and feverishness, these famous Pills should be resorted to as the gentlest and surest corrective of the stomach, and the best antidote to its ailments. These Pills dispel the cause of dyspepsia ; everyone afflicted with it may rejoice at the safe and satisfactory results which can be secured at so small a charge as the purchase of a box of Hollowav.’s Pills. They purify, strengthen, and remedy nr young persons. Thousands of sufferers, who casually commenced a course of Holloway’s Pills, have admired their restorative power over themselves, and afterwards recommended them with a fixed confidence, which has never been betrayed.