A SHOCKING DISASTER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1111, 29 May 1883, Page 3

A SHOCKING DISASTER.

The New York correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald relates a shocking disaster which occurred a few weeks ago in New York ; —* At a Catholic school in Third street, which is under the direction of the RedemptovKt Fathers, there was a sudden alarm of fire ; a wild rush of 500 children and their mm teachers down the one stairway which the fl lines had left open ; a breaking of (he wooden balustrade near the bottom, and a pilling np of sea ret of bodies in a heap at t' 10 entrance. Fortunately the firemen were promptly on band, and, having extinguished the fire in two or three minutes, used superhuman efforts to rescue the poor children. In a short five minutes, however, no less than s xteen little creatures, from six to twelve years old, had been suffocated, while a score of others were more or less injured. Had the Her proved unmanageable—a quite conceivable case—half or two thirds of all the children would assuredly have been sacrificed. There is seldom a more pitiful spectacle than that at a funeral, which took place two days later at the church near the school. As the sixteen little coffins, covered with flowers, were j '