FOUR DIE IN FIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1918, Page 3

FOUR DIE IN FIRE.

TERRIBLE CITY TRAGEDY. WAS WUE OF HOLD THE CAUSE? Sydney, June 22. Charles llimmelferb, said to bo a Russian, knows better to-day than any man in Sydney the falsity of the lure of gold. Charles Hiinmelferb had a secondhand dealer's store in Sussex Street, near Liverpool street, when he went to bed on Thursday night. And he had thousands of pounds m gold and other coin stowed away iu all sorts of extraordinary places. And he had a family of four children, ranging in age from seven to 21 years.

Now his shop and dwelling are gone—a smouldering, blackened pile—and the bodies of his four children lie at the Morgue, suffocated in the disaster. The gold, he still has tluit, but it no longer holds attraction for him. The tragedy has thrown him into a condition of dimentia, the more so' since it becomes clearer at every stage of investigation of police and firemen that it was the desire to retrieve the treasure that led to the pitiful tragedy of four bodies, with life ebbing fast, crowded beneath a tossed and rumpled bed, as though the children had, cut off from escape, clambered over it to the window, and looked at the great leap without. Perhaps in the last resort, as they heard the efforts of the fire-fighters, some instinct of preservation or some overpowering impulse of fear drove them to cower from the blinding smoke beneath the bed. But it is also true of their position that the elder boy was found with hands almost clutching at tie corner of the floor where the gold had been hidden beneath the timbers and the ceiling beneath. "There's a florin sticking tlirough that crack," said First Class Constable Edney, when he went op duty at six j o'Btedc yesterday morning, and he direc- | ted anotht-r officer to secure it. Other I moneys had been found earlier, The constable, standing on a table, reached for the coin. At his touch the ceiling gave way, and a bag of some £SOO in gold fell upon him. It was directly above this spot that the bodies were found. The constables stood amazed as the realisation of the tragedy broke in upon them. This, then, supplied a reason for the deaths of the children, whose father had earlier said they had followed him out of the blazing tenement, when ho rushed away for help. If, as he says, they followed him, then to the police it is clear that they under-esti-mated the danger, and went back up the narrow death-trap of stairway to their doom, lured by the gold. Once in the upper storey, there was no escape for them, except by a leap of some 40ft. Slowly they suffocated into stuperfaction, and though Fire-officers Cox and Eiddell, and Firemen Beale, Muir and Featherston got them out before they were actually dead, and attempted to revive them, they died on the way to tlie hospital. The condition of the room bore terrible testimony to their last grim fight. Looking to the stairway they would see tongues of leaping flame, and a partition glowing like an asbestos grate. That way was the only way out, except through the window, and why they did not take that course is only accounted for by the fact that they stayed too long in their endeavor to get the gold. And now—Bernard Hiinmelferb (21), Jacob Himmelferb (14$), Esther Himmelferb (II), and Sarah Himmelferb (7), are dead. LEAP FOR LIFE. The father made his escape by leaping from a back window to a shed. The fire had started in the shop itself, presumably through spontaneous combustion, and 'he was forced to that desperate measure. But even more desperate was the plight of his wife, Kathleen Himmelferb, who, with the flames literally licking round her, plunged from the window of her bedroom to the pavement beneath, and broke an arm. Gallantly a block boy, Edward Hayes, attempted to save her from hurt, and then turned on the call to the fire station. FIREMEN'S FIGHT. Nothing more thrilling than the fight of the firemen had been known in Sydney for years. They knew the children were within. On the way to the fire the racing engines had passed the distracted father, and they heard his cries. From front and rear they attacked. They were driven back; in those narrow confines there is not much room for a man to work. But they came at the foe again, and, scaling ladders, got in to the rescue. Too late! For the funnel of the stairway shaft shut them off from the prisoners, and the battle had to be renewed. In a few seconds the firemen won, and came upon the evidences of. the tragedy. All the children were more or less burnt, and the eldest was singed about the head—testimony of his last desperate throw before sinking into oblivion. £2500 RECOVERED. The search of'the premises began as ( soon as the fire was out. Early it was discovered that much money was hidden about the premises. Here, beneath a dressing table, were discovered notes; again, in the stuffing .of a sofa, was more coin; beneath a bed was more; and in a fireplace still more, till the blackened pile became a veritable treasure house. Beneath the bodies was the bag of gold and some £4O in Bilver. All day long firemen and policemen turned' over the debris and sent their finds to the Clarence Street Police Station, where a temporary counting house was installed. By the time the count had finished, the amount recovered had reached £2s79—notes £1351, gold £509, silver £719. One extraordinary fact was revealed by the search. In a bankbook was found evidence that Charles Himmelferb had' drawn some hundreds of pounds on the day that Great Britain had entered the war against Germany —that particular account, in fact, being closed. Himmelferb had not been able to give a clear statement of what happened when he left the building. He said at one time that he had sent the eldest boy for the money while he went for the brigade; at another he could not account for the children going back up the stairs. The premises and the two other premises adjoining were owned by him. The insurances amount to £3BOO.