Untitled

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 62, 17 April 1869, Page 3

Exciter Scene at a Fire. — About six o'clock one morning, ■ a fire was discovered to have broken out in the house, of Mr. E. Hobart Barlee, Lansdqwn Crescent, Notting Hill, London. The inmates. Mr. and Mrs. Barlee and two maid-servants, were roused by the police, but already the staircase was in flames, and no fire escape was yet at hand. As soon as the apparatus arrived, it was reared in fronfr of the house, and the servants — one of them badly burned — were rescued from the second story. Mrs. Barlee had somehow ascended to the third story, and owing to the accidental breaking of the flyladder of the escape, it became impossibleto reach her. Her screams at this time are described as heartrending. As a last resource she. determined to throw herself from the window, but while preparing -to nlake -the terrible leap she fell backward into the burning building — the flames had now got to the top story— and perished. Her husband escaped by jumping from a back window. The charred remains of the unfortunate lady, who. was only twenty-four years of age, were found several hours afterwards.

I