DESTRUCTIVE FIRES.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXV, Issue 3816, 11 November 1869, Page 3

DESTRUCTIVE FIRES.

AN OLD WOMAN BURNT TO DEATH. By the arrival of the s.s. * Stormblrd* y«attr* day, we bare Nelson papsra to the sth. The Colonist of that date says :— Last night, ahortly before 19 o'clook, some people on the Church hill saw a bright light coming from the other aide of the Port hills and not far from Mr. Stafford* house. It prored to be the cottage of aa infirm old woman named Margaret Herdman, better known as " Old Margaret." Mr. Lowe gare the alarm to the next neighbour, aroused Mr William Morrison and others, and ran up t< get the hose from the lock-up station, and *lso got a iiae of men to hand buckets from the tide-way, the tide being full at the time. The fire, however, had too firm a hold on tke house, and, as there waa no ohance of saving it, attention waa directed to prevent the fire reaching the adjoining (building, » twostoried cottage, occupied by George Crosbie. Efforts were, however, first mad* by Mr Morrison to get into the house, and ho bun open the back door, white another did the same with the front, but they were both me by a body of fl«mo which appeared completely to fill the house, so that it w»s im possible to render any assistance to tht aged occupant;, who;e rem»in«, frightfully burned and charred, with the bowelpardy protruding and with one lower limb burned off to tb» middle of the tbigb, wtre ■hortly after found among the smoking ruin*. The efforts of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Morrison, James Hart, and Frederick Freeman, with the assistance of Mr. Wright and others, «ho supplied water and otherwise aided, preserved the next bouse, about 12 feet distant from the house on fire, from being burned, although the flames caught the upper part of the building, the boards of which ar» considerably scorched, but through the aid of the hote pipe and the buckets of water no further damage wan done. Old Margaret's hous«, too, exhibits evidence of the effect of the water supply, for a portion of the weatherboarding still adhered to the uprights, the outside paint unblistered, although the inner part was quite consumed. After the firs had been subdued, search wa* made for the old woman, and her body was found lying on the partially-consumed mattress, and exhibiting the ghastly spectacle we have described. Some years ago Margaret broke her left thigh-bone, and it would appear that the limb had parted at the old break. Ths cause of the fiie ii not far to leek. Little more than a quarter *f an hour before Mr. Lowe saw the fire, she had beeu visited by Mrs. Mormon, who used to look after her, and see her to bed as often as she wouW allow her — for the poor old creature was exceedingly positive aud wilful. She found her partially undressed lying on tae bad : Bbc would not accept any assistance, aud after a little time, and placiog the caudle on the middle of the table, Mrs. Morrison left the house. It is supposed that Margaret bad gut up, or attempted to get up, goon after • wards, and probably overturned the candle and sot fire to her bed-ourtains, as there wa» no doubt tbat tho fire originated in the bedroom. The body was carried to the Pier Hotel, and deposited in an out-building, there to await the coroner's ioqueit. Margaret Herdman, a native of Fifenhir<-, in Scotland, waa about eighty years of age aud was one of the oldest settlers, as well as the oldest woman in the province, and was muoh cared for and assisted by numbers of benevolent people, to whom her sad end will cause muoh tegreb,