Disastrous Fire.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 127, 28 April 1884, Page 3

Disastrous Fire.

[Chronicle]

The citizens of Wangonui weip roused from their peaceful slumbers 'early yesterday "moi ning by the alarm : bell ringing out a fire m number 2. "Ward, and before many seconds had elapsed the Five Brigade were on the look out for the blaze, and discovered • * Mrs Walker's premises m the -Avenue, to be the scene of the fire. . One hose ■was got m at the hack, another m the front, the combined force of tfre two being brought to bear from both aides of the building simultaneously. Fortunately the fire was kept to the building m which it originated, though the flames were not got under till the interior had been completely gutted, hardly a single article being saved, and the shop, when dayligh t broke, presented a melancholy spectacle of spoliation. [Whole shelves full of fabrics werp left ■•: charred and spoilt, aad the upstairs part of the building was a com pie te wreck, Mr Walker, with three of the children, bad gone to bed at 11 o'clock, and Mrs tValker, with the Misses Kennedy and A visitor to the. house named Stone, retired about midnight, after , having had supper m a loom at the back of the shop. Here it npeafs the 'fire com - nienced, for on Mr Walker being awoke by th c suffocating feel ing of sru oke it ( • was found iropoßJ-ible to get down the stairs leadiug to the back, from which direction the flames came. He roused the others m the house immediately, but so rapidly did the fire spread that they only escaped with difficulty from r the front and over the yerandah en des- ! Juibille. Stove had one of th,e you,ng i ladies under each arm, and he managed to get hold of his watch, this being . about all that was caved from the whole affair. Mrs Walker estimates her loss at frota £5000 to £6000. The insurances, amount to a total of £4700.