THE FIRE AT HAMILTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6811, 15 September 1883, Page 5

THE FIRE AT HAMILTON.

FURTHER PARTICULARS. [FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Hamilton, Friday. That the fire which destroyed the Hamilton billiard-room ou Wednesday night did not also destroy the premises of the Union Bank of Australia and other buildings, is due entirely to the use of the baby engine supplied by ono of the insurance companies, and which, with a number of buckets, is always kept in readiness at the Hamilton Hotel opposite. If other insurance companies would either supply such engines or join in the cost of a larger engine and hose, and a fire brigado were formed here, which in such case would readily be done, fires might in future be more 1 readily confinad to the buildings in which j they break out. The Union Bank had a ' most narrow escape; again and again the flames broke out upon the side wall, which waß within fifteen feet of the building burned down, and the glass in all the windows was smashed, but half way between the two down this narrow passage was a high close fence, under the shelter of which Mr. Barnard, of the Public Works, and Mr. E. Pilling, though some times needing a bucket of water thrown over them, worked the baby engine on the side of the bank and the- section of its roof facing ths fire, preventing the flames from doing more than deeply char the weatherboards and biirn about a square yard of the shingles. Mr. E. Wilson and others on the roof did also excellent service. Meantime the books and furniture were removed ; for it was by the merest chance, a lull iu the wind, that even the bank was saved. Victoria-street is 99 feet wide, but the wind carriod the burning flames to the other side, and the roof of the long building belonging to Mr. Harper, in which are Dr. Carey's surgery and other offices, was half-a-dozen times on fire in as many different places, but with plenty of hands and water the flames were allowed to get no fair hold. The origin of the fire is unknown. The billiard-room had been vacated some balf-an-hour before it broke out, and th'j lights carefully extinguished.