HOKITIKA.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3663, 22 September 1880, Page 2

HOKITIKA.

This day. Horrible Death of a Mother and Child. Constable Stephenson, stationed at Kanieri, reported this morning a horrible death by burning of a woman named Margaret Hutchinson and her infant child four months' old. David .Hutchinson stated to him that his wife and child had been burnt to death the night previous at their house on Tucker's Flat, a short distance from the Kanieri township. The constable visited the place and found the remains of the body, both legs and one arm being burned away, and the head partly consumed. No trace of the infant could be found. The house consisted of two rooms only. At 11 o'clock last evening David Hutchinson returned home and found his wife lying on a stretcher in the kitchen in the front room, and the baby in a cradle alongside the stretcher. No conversation took place between tbe husband and wife, and the former went into the back room where there were five children asleep. He then I retired to rest leaving his wife and baby in the front room, in which room there was a little fire and a lighted kerosene lamp on the table. At about 3 a.m. he was awoke by the glare of light and smoke. He called to his wife, but got no reply. He then rushed into the front room and found the roof and side walls all ablaze. He shook his wife, but she never attempted to move. He could not get to the front door which was burned, and he ran back to the bedroom, raised the window, and had barely time to put out the five children who escaped. By that time he found it impossible to get into the front room again, and the neighbors endeavored to put out the fire, but their efforts were unavailing. The house and contents were entirely consumed. An inquest will be held to-morrow morning,

(FBOM A COBBEBPONDEJST.)