TELEGRAPHIC.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2559, 28 March 1887, Page 2

TELEGRAPHIC.

(UNITED WESS WSOOUTIOKi) r .; CmrBTOBDECH, March 26, '■• ; -A'heavynor'wester wa3experienced at Oxford yesterday!: Two bush fires pccuiiW'^iirOxford'"and" Vior'Q Hill. : clistrict'r'' Gue oaused the destruction of a six-roomed house andall contents. The other reached a cottage ocoupied by a laborer named Anderson, at Viow Hill, half an ,-hour -before midfigh't. The man" was/away with' a' threshing machine, and the house was destroyed, Mrs Anderson and two children being burned to death. Another child is so badly injured that it is not expected to live. Mr Whiteford, the coroner, has gone up. There, are no further details. •, '.-' ■..';■ ; ; ' ; < t ....: ; ..;. : Lateb, Later accounts of the fatal fire at View Hill show' that Mrs Anderson,, who; was •■•: sleeping ■; downstairs -with three'children,'- ageil, two, 'fqur,:'landeight years'(two boys and'one'girl')," found. the house on fire at about quarter t0,12. .She immediately put two children.i out .of ; 'the window,' and it is supposed left the baby to run upstairs and waken those that wero sleeping there—her boys Oscar, aged 17, and Kenneth, aged G, Mr Budd, sen., of Greendale, who was sleeping there for the night, and a boy ho had with him named Carlyle, and Oscar ! got safely out. Oscar not finding his mother ran into the house again,' and got vory badly burned about the faos and shoulders. He is-not expected to live. Thfl mother, in" toieavoring to save Kenneth,' got suffocated, the flames having such a hold on the house that the ceiling- gave way, She fell on to the bed underneath, and was burned to- -ashes.- Kenneth also fell through the ceiling, and met with the same fate.. The!child, which it is presumed the mother intended picking up when she returned, was also .burned to'death. He was-sleep-, ing in a'oradle close to hisr mother* The fire.-.. is supposed to have'" been oaused by the north- west -wßd. blow-; ing down-thechimney—not a bushfire as was at first. supposed.'; •;V'- ; ,;;;.'• j At the. inquest, on Thomas; Lewis, drowned in the Avon-, a verdict of Found Drowned was returned. It was stated that the night before,-the bodywasfounlLewis had called, at two hotels, at one of which he,was refuseddiinkbecause,he Was drunk, while at the other he .-got,-a- pint" of Beer before the .barmaid, noticed his condition,,' but he ' was,' afterwards refused drink. The coroner,'referring tothelaw on the subject, said.the barmaid was : not. responsible. ■ The law required amending, for assuming' that the. barmaid had, .supplied the liquor, knowing him to be, drunk, neither she nor tho landlord,, jf absent from tlie premises, could, under tho existing-, tow-, .be. .found responsible The landlord had instructed' the barmaid riot to serve drunken- men. 'I 1 - ; .Auckland, March2o. ; A firebroke out this morning at 8. olclock in a dwelling-house in"Victoria Street belonging to Mr John James, and occupied by Robert M'Phee. The flames were suppressed very soon after the alarm was given. The discovery was made-that the fire has been burning in four different'parts of the house, three downstairs-and one upstairs, several articles being saturated with kerosine. Mrs, M'Phee has been arrested' by the' police and charged with arson. She was brought up at the Police Court this morning,' and remanded'till Friday nest.'._;■