THE GREAT DISASTER AT MADRAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7862, 3 February 1887, Page 5

THE GREAT DISASTER AT MADRAS.

I AFTER THE FIRE AND PANIC. INCENDIARISM SUSPECTED, [redteb's telegram.]

Melbourne, February 2. Indian papers further state that on the morning after the fire took place the Governor (Sir Robert Bourke) visited the hospitals. Messages of condolence were received from the Queen, from Lord Dufferin (Viceroy), and Sir Robert Fowler (late Lord Mayor of London), who happened to be on a visit to the Governor. His assistance was especially useful in organising subscriptions, himself heading the list. Suspicion has been aroused that the fire was the work of incendiarism, from the fact that many of the bodies have been looted, and the fire broke out simultaneously in two places. A writer in the Madras Mail asserts, from personal observance, that the suspicious actions of the natives on the night of the fire convinced him that the catastrophe was the result of a concerted scheme. Upwards of twenty burnt bodies have been found. Most of the victims were males, women and children, apparently having been passed by in the rush to the gates. The soldiers and civilians, both European and Indian, inside the enclosure, worked in a most unselfish manner to rescue the sufferers.