AMATEUR SALVAGE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9088, 5 March 1908, Page 3

AMATEUR SALVAGE.

A volunteer salvage corps _ worked havoc at Gisborne one evening last week? A big drapery establishment, owned by Messrs Teat and Friar, caught alight, audi thp mob started out to “save” the contents of the premises next door, _ which were in no danger. Watching the operations from the rear, a Herald reporter saw fully twenty-five or thirty young men bursting themselves with excitement. Standing on the counters they cleared a shelf of an armful of goods and hurled them regardlessly to the floor. Another stood'by pitching cardboaid boxes at the gas fittings. A burly man was excitedly grabbing up bulky hat boxes and throwing them along the' shopito no one in. particular. “Oh, we’ve got to save something,” was the wild reply to an angry protest that the building' was perfectly safe. This scene continued for fully a quarter of an hour. Rolls of cloth., boxes of finery, bats, clothes, hosiery, etc. —all were bundled out 'unceremoniously into the roadway,, making a pile of a couple of drayloads. To .make matters worse, one foolish person rushed in and seized the gas meter, dragging it from its fittings, and illumination was out of the question. The shop was ransacked from end to end regardless of care or reason, whilst the draught caused by the open window and doors increased the chances of the place catching alight.