SERIOUS FIRES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9673, 22 December 1909, Page 5

SERIOUS FIRES.

SEVERAL LIVES LOST.

RESULT OF A PANIC.

United Press Association—Electric Telegraph Copyright. Received December 21, 10.15 a m. LONDON, December 20. A fire at Arding and Hobb's drapery stores at Clapham caused a panic amongst hundreds of employees, who were dressing the windows for Christmas or busy upstairs. Many jumped from the windows. The firemen rescued scores The building was gutted. Thirty of the injured wera taken to the hospital. Several perished. The dome of the building fell, setting fire to provision stores and several other houses. The shops were destroyed. Received December 22, 12.15 a.m. LONDON, December 21. Arding and Hobbs' handsome block of buildings covered a space of 100 yards square, and fifty departments emloying six hundred assistants. The fire was due to an assistant breaking an electric lamp while getting a comb from a window filled with celluloid articles. Soon the place was blazing, and the public and assistants rushed screaming and struggling to escape. In tan minutes the shop was like a furnace, and further rescue work was abandoned. Four persons were killed leaping frym the upper floors. The flamea were a splendid spectacle. The copper and ornamental tower collapsed and set fire to a store on the opposite side of the road. A draper and drug store was also in flames. The Hon. John Burns, whose house is within one hundred yards of the fire, organised a party to tear down the Venetian masts and festocm of flowers erected in the streets in connection with the Christmas shopping, which were carrying the liames across the street. He also organised bends of soldiers and sailors to assist the firemen. Mr Burns worked with a sack over his head, in which he cut eye holes. His hands were badly blistered. Mr Shirley Renn, a Unionist candidate for Battersea, alao assisted. Forty shops and houses were destroyed, and the damage amounted to £1,000,000. It is impossible to ascertain the number of deaths until the ruins are searched, and the roll of Arding and Hobbs' employees called.

STAMPEDES FROM AMERICAN THEATKES. NUMBERS INJURED. Received December 21, 9 a.m. NEW YORK, December 20. Stampedes occurred in connection with three fires in New York. Many persons were injured at the Windsor Theatre, where the audience numb'red 700, at the Murrayhill Theatre (tha audience totalled 1,600), and the Broadway Theatre.

THIRTY BUILDINGS DESTROYED. Received December 21, 10.30 a.m. MELBOURNE, December 21. A fire swept out a block of thirty weather board dwellings and shops in Verdon, Parker, and Railway Streets, Williamstuwn, Jnme and a quarter miles south-west of Melbourne. The fire spread with tremendous rapidity* - The occupants of the premises were mostly workmen. ,They saved very little. Some had narrow escapes. The damage is estimated at from £IO,OOO to 12,000. Another fire destroyed the cnildren's convalescent home at Hampton, eleven miles south-east of-Melbourne.