FIRE AT COROMANDEL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 268, 9 November 1895, Page 2

FIRE AT COROMANDEL.

SERIOUS BURNING ACCIDENT,

(from our own correspondent.)

Coromandei,, Friday.

Mr telegram in regard fco the serious burning accidenb bo Mr Fred Mace was rabher badly mutilated in transmission. The facts of tho case are simple enough. Mr Mace waß in charge of a party for Kelly Bros., surveyors, and was located in Kennedy Bay. On Wednesday evening he went to bunk about 9.45, reading » newspaper by the light of a candle tied to a pole, a push candlestick. B? slept in a tent by himself, the three men occupying another tent a few yards off. Aboub 11 o'clock the cook, Newton, was aroused by cries proceeding from Mr Mace's tenb, and hurried over to pull him oub of the tent, which he at once saw was on lire. Bub it was a patent mpsqui.oproof tent, and the cook was unable to get the man out ab once. The others of tho party, R. Beere and two Germans, now hurried up, and the united efforts of the men freed Mr Mace from hiß perilous position. He was by this tj me very badly burned: He thinks that after reading a while be must have gone asleep, and then the newspaper musb have fallen over on tbp candle, and the parts of it thab fell down musb have set fire to the n-unga-munga bed, on which he slept. The moequitorprpof tenb kepb bhe snioke in, and so he was half-suffocated before the pain of bhe burns caused him to cry oub. When he was rescued his face was very badly burned, and arms and feet were likewise burned. Everybody thoughb ho was going to die, but better hopes prevailed when he asked for his pipe coming down the Tokatea Hill. Dr. Going, attending him ab bhe Coromandel Hospital, has breab hopes of the man's recovery. Mr Beere and the others of the party were assisted in carrying the injured man to the Hospital by a number of the mon working for Mr Smyth in the bush ab Kennedy Bay. These men deserve greab credit for thoir humanity in leaving their work at a moment's notice, and putting themselves to the long and toilsome job of carrying a man up from Kennedy Bay across tho Tokatea Hill and into Coromandel. Ib speaks well for Jin de siecle human feeling. When I saw Mr Mace ab the Hospital, he seemed prebby well, and would willingly havo bold me the story of the accident ; bub Mr Park, the kindly and careful warder at tbe Hospital, thoughb ib better for him to be quieb. I then got the particulars from Mr Beere. Mr Kelly did not hear of the accident till Thursday morning, bub as .oon as he did hear of it he rpdo pff to the scene and made all necessary arrangements for tho carriage of the man to the Hospital. Ab firab Dr. Going bhoughb bhat Mr iiI&CQ would be likely to lose his left hand, bub I now gather thab he is likely to recover with only a bad disfiguremenb. The case was conaidored so bad ab first that Constable Donovan was asked to get a J. P. to take Mr Mace's depositions, ahd Mr Argall was called in for the purpose. As a mabter of fact, nothing more was narrated than appears in this accounb.