BURNING OF A HUNGARIAN CONVENT.

Evening Star, Issue 5226, 4 December 1879, Page 2

BURNING OF A HUNGARIAN CONVENT.

Pres'shnrg (says a Vienna correspondent), themotHerof Hungarian cities, was a few i;i-»hts ngoflluminate/1 by a terrible conflagration, whose'angry f.uld In Heeu lor leaguesaround. noblest buildings of the ancient capital* wJhiuh for nearly 2,000 years has looked iU hills on the Danube shore, here.'Wdly sweeping off to the right on entering Hungary, is "the cloister of the E'iii»bethau iiud^» The hospital attached to this institution' caught fire through the carelessness of a servant, who dropped a light on some straw in a -loft. The flames quickly grew on fmch-rxcellebt fuel, and spreading to th« beautiful church tower close by soon protruded their fi-ry tongues through the belfry windows. Trie nuns, alarmed at the crowds which assembled, dared net scud for the fire-engines or the military, and feebly endeavored to exjjinimish the flames When at last the brigade arriv.-d it was too late to do more than attempt to localise the cbirfiagration as much as poss bb. The cries of the hospital patients as they were transferred t j ilie barracks were tcniblo; -whilst the nuns,

who belong to a very severe and exclusive ordiT, were, if possible, more paralysed by fear of the soldiers than of the fire itself. The bishop and abb >t were soon on the spot, and began a "Misere," a religious exercise which did not seem to do so much good as the efforts of the firemen, whose captain at last bogued their reverenoes not to get in everybody's way, but to lend a band at the pumps. The whole tower was now wrapptd in flame, which in the still windless night pointed far upwards like some huge warning finger, of which the body of the church was the closed hand. After four hours' labor, during which time the plucky little band of firemen gallantly risked their lives to check the flames, the fiery beacon was observed for a few feconds to rock, and slowly to lean over towards the church. It broke off sharp about the middle, and fell with a terfiflo crash on the oopper-covered roof, from which the melted metal soon pottred in streams. The fragments of the tower falling on the steep roof, rolled off, and fell to the grottfed in a clou iof sparks. The incessant labors of the firenun, aided by a violent rain, which opportunely fell for three or four hours, eventually mastered the flames, and by mid' day the danger was over.