A CONVENT BURNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 72, 26 March 1921, Page 11

A CONVENT BURNED.

SISTERS AND CHILDREN FLEEJ A SENSATIONAL FIRE. UNDER MYSTERIOUS, j CIRCUMSTANCES. ■ I The burning of St. Joseph'- Roman j Catholic Convent, which is situated on i the Great North Road just inside the ' fev-ond drey Lynn tram car section, and its ultimate destruction by the flames, <ame as a terrifying interruption to the midnight Adoration which w:us proceed- j ing at the adjacent church very early i on Good Friday morning. It was only! a lew minutes after midnight that a ] gentleman, proceeding to this service, ' which is held in accordance with the custom on the night before Good Friday, saw a small nicker in the lower piirt of the convent, which is next door to the church he was a/bout to enter. Almost instantly he saw a stranger dose to the seat of the fire, but the fellow instead of answering the earnest question addressed to him, hurried away. i Turning back to the convent building the gentleman was horrified to observe ■that it was really on lire, and as its! timbers had been set together over thirty years ago the flames soon had a fast hold. He rushed into the church and alarmed the congregation gathered there, but their efforts to check the fierce burning of the old building by throwing buckets of water were not successful. ! NUNS AND CHILDREN ESI APE. j The convent, of course, was habited by several of the St. Joseph Sisters of Mercy and six small children, all girls, who were forced to flee in their nightclothes. Gallantly the sisters put the terror-stricken children outside, and saw them safely in tTie arms of the men outside, before they gave a thought to their own predicament, and then in the face of the flickering flames they all escaped, • each as best she could, one of the ladies, an invalid, 'being forced to .slide down a verandah post. I Though it was so sensational an occurrence this escape of the inmates occupied scarcely more than a fewminutes, so that the inside of the building ivaa deserted when the City Fire Brigade came dashing with its usual promptitude, and soon had five great ; jets of water spraying over the flaming i building. But from the very first there was no hope, and the whole of the con- ■ vent, worth nearly £5000, was a wreck, j Although apparently it started under the main floor, the fire burned upwards i and did not spread to any great extent till it began to envelop the second storey. Consequently the fittings if the ground floor were not utterly destroyed, ! though they were damaged so much as to make them almost useless. The top ! floor burned fiercely, and the flames ' were not completely drowned for nearly two hours. ' Meanwhile the children were received in the neighbouring houses, where they j passed the remainder of the night, being ■ transferred to St. Mary's Convent, Pon- j sonby. on Good Friday. The Sisters j were taken to their own home at St. Benedict's. A MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN*. The origin of the blaze is still more or less of a mystery, although the surrounding circumstances are sufficiently doubtful to warrant an investigation of the affair by the police. The mysterious Etranger is a suspicious factor, and besides this there is absolutely no reason yet apparent why the fire should break out under the ground floor, at a place easily accessible from the street, and also where neither gas nor electric wiring, nor any other fire-producing agency has ever been used. j Bishop Cleary this morning drew attention to the fact that about a month ago a false alarm was given to the city fire station that St. Joseph's Convent was ablaze, and also about the same time it was reported that the Roman Catholic Convent at Remuera was on fire. Happily these reports were not then true, but it is a coincidence that the previous false alarm was given from the same box as the true call on Friday morning. Curiously enough, the brigade had just returned from a call from this same alarm box. They had been called to attend to a burning butcher's cart in the neighbourhood. | The burned convent building is one of a series of four. There is a school next door, then St. Joseph's Church, and then the Presbytery. The school and the destroyed convent have both an interesting history, and it will , readily be remembered that at the time of the dreadful outbreak of influenza in Auckland both these buildings were furnished and used by the Sisters of St. Joseph as temporary hospitals for the sick. The building itself was insured for £1000 with the Liverpool and London and Globe, and the furnishings for another £300 in the same office, though both are estimated to be worth much more than these figures. REBUILDING PLAN LAUNCHED. Naturally a building used for such a purpose as St. Joseph's Convent cannot "'" long be left in its present state, so a plan of rebuilding has even now been inaugurated. To this the Roman Catholic community has made immedi-1 ate response, and a considerable sum i towards the cost of constructing a | better and bigger convent has already ! been promised. Meanwhile the police are searching for anything that will throw some light on the origin of this mysterious fire.