DANGERS OF FLANNELETTE.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVI, Issue 50, 3 December 1909, Page 3

DANGERS OF FLANNELETTE.

AN INFANT'S DEATH. Tin- l'iiels elicited at the Auckland Hospital «t the iiiijiK'tit concerning the death of Albert Roy i'otrie, the two-year-old son of Albert Ernest Potrio. one-,' more (says tlw 'Star') showed tlie danger of using flannelette lor nigh! itiU'isuuits. According to the story told iiy the lather, who is a bootmaker, iradr.ig in Dominion Road under the name of Masters, the children were jihi to lied and a candle was left burning in the room. Twenty minutes later the mother went no to the bedroom for a pair of scissors and found the little girl, four years old, fast asleep, but the Iwy was still awake. About five minutes afterwards' the child was hoard to scream out, and when the parents rushes d into the room they found the little fellow out of bed with his flannelette nightgown on fire, it evidently having caught from the candle. The child war. at once taken to a doctor's near by and then to the hospital. l)r Thomson, house surgeon at the institution, .said that there was practically no hope when the child was admitted, and it died next morning from shock. The coroner (Air T. Grosham), referring to leaving a lighted candle in the room with children, said it was a bad practice to begin, as the child would always look for a light, and as the present case showed there was a grave dai:o;er. One of the jurymen said thet he kn-'W of a eas> where a child had been accustomed I o this bad oraelice, and "'.hough he was now eleven years old be, would not go to sleep without a light. The coroner also called attention to 'he dinger of ilaiinelett", and said a e-w r;ort had been introduced at Home which was not inflammable, and branded to that effect. Ho believed it had not come to the colonies yet, but when if did it was to Im hoped it would bo oso(] instead of the present dangerous arlicle. The jury found that death was accidentally caused, no blame being attachable to anyone.