FIRE AT BLENHEIM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9151, 5 September 1888, Page 5

FIRE AT BLENHEIM.

[BY TELEGRAPH.— PRESS ASSOCIATION. ] Blenheim, Tuesday. A fire broke out about midnight yesterday in Corbett's Temperance Boarding-house in Maxwell Road. The proprietor and family and most of his eight boarders were asleep, but providentially one boarder named Walker, a billiardist, returned late. Oil entering he found a strange man on the sofa, and the sitting-room was full of smoke. Walker roused the landlord, but in the confusion and smoke the strange man went away. In a minute the house was in flames, and the boarders lost everything but their lives. The family only just got out in time, and the house and nearly all its contents were quite destroyed. The adjoining house (Rayner's) and the opposite one (Dr. Cleghorn's) were saved with difficulty. At ten o'clock this morning Constable Franklin arrested a man at the Commercial Hotel, charged with being illegally on Corbett's premises. He proved to be Dan Peter Jacobsen. He said he went in for a bed, hut could not make anybody hear, so lay down. No connecting evidence was adduced. He was sent to gaol for 14 days. The insurances on the properties affected by the fire are as follows : —Corbett's furniture, £85, in the Norwich Union Office; house, £400 in the Liverpool, London and Globe Office ; M. Rayner's house, £30 in the Royal ; T. Rayner's, only about £4 damage done.