GOING FROM HOME FOR NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9126, 27 June 1908, Page 4

GOING FROM HOME FOR NEWS.

A fortnight ago we published the following par:—"An incipient fire of n unusual character gave a local resident rather a rude shock yesterday. The resident in question—a gentleman who wor>a an india-robber overcoat—was standing back-on warming himself by a gas heater, when a person with whom he was conversing noticed a volume of smoke proceeding apparently,_from the heater. Speedy investigation showeJ, however, that the overcoat was in flames, and the wearer disrobed himself ot it with due alaciity, and none too soon, as the fire had a good hold of the garment." The par reached Hawera in due course, and the local paper told its readers the news as follows:—"A Masterton man, wearing a rubber coat, was warming himself at an oil heater, when his coat took fire. He had just titivj to divest himself of it ere it blazed up and was speedily demolished." It will be noticed that in transit from Masterton to Hawera the gas-heater has been transformed into an oil apparatus and that the coat was "speedily demolished." Should the news reach as far as Auckland —a quite probable event —we shall not be surprised to learn that the unfortunate Masterton man was warming himself by a wooden match, and that not only the coat, but the wearer himself met an untimely end.