SHOCKING AFFAIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8057, 19 September 1887, Page 5

SHOCKING AFFAIR.

TWO CHILDREN BURNED TO DEATH. Yesterday evening a man named Stephen Clark, a settler at Swausou, came in to the police station and reported to tho lock-up keeper, Constable McUlellau, that on Saturn day near midnight, his whare had been burned down and two of his children, Ada Isabella Clark, aged 7. and Ada Bentley, aged 4, were burnod to death while sleeping there. Clark stated that he was aroused at the above hour by hearing shouts of men from the adjoining whare. He jumped out of bed, .and found the whare on tire. He opened the door, and then returned for his wife and children. As he saw there was no time to lose, he woke the children, and told them to follow him. After getting his wife out, who was an invalid, and one child, he returned for the other two, but found it impossible to enter the whare, as it was all in flames. He forced in part of the whare to get one of the children out, but just then the building collapsed, and the child fell hack into the flames. Clarke is burned about the arms iu endeavouring to rescue the children. The tire did not begin in his place, but in a whare adjacent, occupied by three men whose names he did not know, as they were strangers to him.