A FEARFUL CONFLAGRATION !!!

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1166, 4 October 1882, Page 2

A FEARFUL CONFLAGRATION !!!

About a quarter past 8 o’clock last evening, our sleepy one dreamed that some person was reciting Edgar Allan Poe’s great poem “ The Bells.” The last verse it will be remembered commences :— “ Hear the loud alarm bells—brazen bells, What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells.” This started our somnolent one, and he awoke, exclaiming, I will arise, and wipe my sleepy eyes, and report upon this fire. Whether it is from habit or from intuition, he seems generally to awake at the right time, for no sooner had he got upon his feet, than he heard a sound. It certainly was anything but a “ loud alarm bell.” In fact for a moment he thought some boys were playing on a tambourine, next that some bell wether was wandering in the vicinity of the Temperance Hotel, where he had been sleeping, and at last hearing someone calling out lustily “ Fire ” I he proceeded to the scene of this fearful catastrophy The sight which met his gaze bafiles description. The lurid glare gave to the heavens a blood-red hue, women and children screamed with afright, dogs howled and wailed, and Gisborne was generally “ tail on end.” Our representative who so often is caught napping (please be careful not to set this up “ nipping ”) states that on arriving on the spot, he found that u magnificent outbuilding, which ut one time had been associated with a dwelling in Derby-street, was in flames. The fire is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary, and as the Government and the united Insurance Company’s offer large rewards for the dis covery of the perpetrators of such dastardly .crimes, it is probable the offender or offender.* will meet the punishment they so .richly deserve.

[What the deuce is this sleeply headed beggar raving about ? he’d butter be ca reful.~Ed.P.B.S.j