DISASTROUS FIRE IN TIEN-TSIN.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1272, 16 April 1878, Page 3

DISASTROUS FIRE IN TIEN-TSIN.

The following are fuller particulars of the fire referred to in the telegrams of a recent date. The fact that we should be able to cut from exchanges the news about which the Agency's correspondent at Hong Kong writes, and his principals telegraph, excuses the passing wish that the principals were at Hong Kong too: — The Tien-tsin correspondent of the " Portia China Herald" says that about ten o'clock on the morning of January 7th a fire broke out among the matsheds in one of the relief yards just outside the S.E. corner of the city wall. A strong N.E. wind was blowing at the time, ' and scarcely an hour passed before the sheds were all burned, and between 2800 and 3000 women and children were suffocated or burned to death. As correct an estimate as I can get gives the number of inmates as 3000, ' of whom only a little over a hundred escapee. The location of this soup kitchen was unfo tf ! tunate. On the east side was the city ditch, ' on a part of the south and west sides was an - ioe-pit, while houses lined the remaining f sides. In addition, it was surrounded by a ' Btrong fence of kauliang stalks plastered with mud, in which there was only one gate. And ] it is said that on the bursting forth of tl e flames, the gatekeeper locked the gate and rtn • away. Many of the Chinese showed much i courage in trying to render assistance, as ( testified by an eyewitness who, passing just at I the time, hastened to do what he could in < tearing down the fence and rendering other services. He speaks of the s.'ene at that time as terrible beyond description. The scene presented after the fire had done its work was ghastly and horrible, and the picture of it rises before my mind as one that can never be effaced. The contortions of the features, the position of the body, hands, limbs, mouth, and eyes, the same as when the flame and smoke overtook them, reminded one of the description of Pompeii. Had the gate been left open, probably many more might have made their escape, but so rapidly did the flames spread through the matsheds, and in the straw and mats spread on the ground as a protection against dampness, that before an opening could be made in the fence, few even were left to linger on in suffering. How the fire originated no one seems to know —a spark, possibly, from the_ range where at the time the millet was cooking.