THE FIRE AT HORDERN'S.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11712, 23 July 1901, Page 6

THE FIRE AT HORDERN'S.

V RECOVERY OF REMAINS. DASHWOOD'S TERRIBLE DEATH. On July 17 the efforts of the firemen and corporation workmen engaged in sear thing', the ruins of Anthony Hordern's premises, in Sydney, for' the remains of the unfortunate men who had lost their lives in the r«eent fire, ! were rewarded with some measuis of success. Shortly < after two o'clock, renuins, believed to be those; of the engineer, Dash- : wood, were i discovered in. the. basement, at the eastern end of the large building front-ingGipps-street, and half-an-hour later a' watch, which has been identified as the pro- ; perty of Nicholl, one ;of the men engaged with Clegg ~>-on . the .upper floor, was ' f-iund among ; a quantity of debris in the same building, and some 20ft from the bottom of the lift well. - The work of conducting the search was particulary heavy, many of the iron columns to be moved weighing three tons. However, the firemen and the:. men put on by the City Council worked willingly. The Sydney district officer of the fire ; brigade,, Mr. Jackson, was in charge of the opera-, tions, and although he despaired of finding even the slightest trace of the men he did, not allow his opinion to slacken his vigilance, He was examining one of the basement windows in' the south-eastern corner, of the main building, almost immediately beneath the spot from ■■ which >. poor • Olegg made his : sensational " leap, when he saw, something which looked like flesh floating, in the water gathered; in _ the recess built beneath the footpath for lighting purposes. He secured the fragment ' with some difficulty, and, being satisfied that "it; formed portion of the',' remains of one of the unfortunate men, he instituted a thorough search in the vioinity. This was hardly so complete' as jhe would like it to have been,' owing) to the presence of a large quantity of water. Notwithstanding the -difficulties the search-; ing- party found what was apparently a section of a skull and several pieces of human bone. * ■, ;,',; ,■ : . : •

Further investigation threw additional light on the terrible manner in which Dashwood had mat , his end. Near by was found a large sledge hammer, which he ; had plied to work his : way to' freedom, and the broken and twisted bars 'of the window showed that he had perished ' when he had the fight almost a won. It will be remembered that when they were warned to quit their posts in the : engineroom, both the engineer and the fireman remained until ~it was too late to effect : their ■ escape by way of Parkerstreet, the only exit from the basement. : Rees, the liftman, who was one of the last in the basement when he gave his warning cry, ' before he made his -way through the burning door, heard Dashwood call to Brett from the front of the building, and j concluded that they would attempt to make their way through one of the windows. Dashwood must have crossed the apartment to where the hammer was kept, and made his way to the window at the eastern end of the front and urged by the flames and smoke behind him attempted to break his way through to the street. The window bars ran perpendicularly, and were stayed by three horizontal pieces of flat iron, each punched with holes, into which the bars fitted. The bottom stay had way to his blows, and . he-had forced the bars so far apart ; that he could get through into the space immediately beneath the, footpath, and separated from the "treet only by a sheet of glass prisms. At this stage, when a couple of blows from the massive hammer would have meant life to him, he was evidently overcome by the heat and fell forward against the bars. . The next discovery came half an hour later, when one of the men, while turning over the debris in the' basement, near* the j lift shaft on the northern side of the samel building, found a watch, which was subsequently identified by two of the em- I ployees as belonging to Nicholl. Tho I case of ' the watch showed signs of the intense heat, and the mechanism had ceased to work >at twenty-two minutes past ten. Of .the nature, of Nicholl's end there can be little known. He was at work on one of the upper floors when the warning to leave the building without delay was given. There seems some reason for believing that he actually made his way to the ground floor in V the lift, and was" suffocated while attempting to reach the exit.

The time for. the receiving of entries! for the ; tenth annual show of the Auckland Kennel Club -is extended to Wednesday noxt at the Anchor Hotel, and they > may *be also left with the gentlemen named 'in the' advertisement elsewhere. >

A : meeting of the Women's; Democratic Union ■will be hold 'j this, evening at Mrs. Kirkby's, Great North Road.