THE FIRE AT HASTINGS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4341, 10 February 1893, Page 3

THE FIRE AT HASTINGS.

Latest Particulars, The special correspondent of the New Zealand Times gives the following particulars of Hastings after the fire:—' The fire at Hastings is in proportion to tho size of the town n tremendous affair, fully half (the more valuable half) being destroyed. There is absolutely no salvage, and the nreu on which once stood a large block of buildings now (It) uso an apt expression of a bystander), ' Looks like a forest clearing,' mil hing appears above the dead level of the ground except the chimneys, ' The Bank of New Zealand safe and its valuable contents were Bayed with great difficulty. •People cinie in from all parts, and a number of Maoris in an adjoining pah others attending the Native Land Court, with fresh contingents trooping in all day formed quite a numerous section of tho populace. Hundreds went out from Napier, and the thriving little town of Hastings probably never in all iis history presented a spectacle at once so gay and sad.

Much sympathy is expressed in Napier with the Hastings people in their sad plight, The insurar.co ollicos arc heavy losers as you have already learned, and I am informed that the agent for the South British Office, seeing tho loss was total, paid up at once. He Ho was good onough to give mo that information on tho journey down, but I smiled sceptically at the time. However, I give you it on Ins authority, The hotels did a roaring business, that is the surviving ones, for Jull's wont down. Whether tho doctrine of the' survival of tho fittest' is exemplified or not I cannot say.

There are two or threo tanks or wells at opposite angles of tho area of fii'3, and there it besides, in the middle of the area in Eevetaunga road, a large sower, through which, beside tho town soworage, there flows a full continuous stream of water. Tho standing orders of tho brigade are to use Ibis as a last resource, and these orders were obeyed, One of the tanks was found to be half empty, and being soon exhausted tho other one was tried. Meanwhile tho firo crossed tho road aud the sower was loft untouched.

The contention of some persons is that tho sewer should have been first used, and some colour of reasonableness is given to this by the subsequent fact that the Napier Fire Brigade in the afternoon played two magnificent streams out of it.

This is a question if management, however, As to the efforts of the Hastings Brigade, tlioy wcro splendidly directed, But for their activity at two points, Caultou's Hotel and the flour mill respectively must have gone down, and still further destruction occurred,

The spectaclo presented by the fire was grand in tho extreme. The morning was dark and windless, and an onormous body of rapidly increasing flame was confined to a small but compact area. Fate seemed to pursue one man with malignity. The chemist, Mr Tyerman, seeing his neighbour's place aflamo, gathered a party of friends and removed his bottles and put his drugs and patent medicines and fancy goods and shop cases with all speed on a vacant right of way opposite No sooner had the last lot boon landed than the firo crossed the street and all tho goods thus removed perished, Tho spot is marked by a curious collection of burned boxes, melted bottles, blacklead tins, and calcined casos, and above all ut; the odouv of castor oil.

. All business, with tho exception of the hotels, is Bußpendod, and Btore» keepars on the other side of the town spent the day in patting ono another on the back, and thanking Heaven for their lucky escape.

The late Lord Tennyson's play, "Beckett," has been producod by Mr Henry Irving at the Lyceum, It is pronounced a great success in overy waydramatic, musical, and spectacular.