THE FITZROY EXPLOSION

Otago Witness, Issue 2924, 30 March 1910, Page 19

THE FITZROY EXPLOSION

MELBOURNE, March 22. The noise of the Fitzroy explosion was heard several miles away. A column of vari-coloured flame shot into the air to an estimated height of 'SOOft; the iron verandah pillars were twisted and thrown across the street, while debris of all descriptions was thrown on to the roofs of the adjoining premises. Two little boys in the same room from which a girl was precipitated had an extraordinary experience. A portion of the floor on which their bed stood remained attached to the walls. The little lads when awakened found themselves on the edge of a miniature precipice. The direction of the flames enabled them to creep into a place of safety. March 27. Crabtree, who sustained a broken leg and who was badly burned as a result of the explosion at Fitzroy, has. succumbed to his injuries. March 28. The records of Crabtree, a New Zealand criminal, have been received by the police. The photograph, though taken 30 years ago, bears a resemblance to Crabtree who died as the result of the Fitzroy explosion. Copies of deceased's finger-prints are being sent to New Zealand . A terrific explosion in the early hours of the 19th inst. completely wrecked two two-storey brick shops in Brunswick street, Fitzroy, and nearly demolished two other shops. In addition 47 shops had their windows and shutters broken. Three inmates of the buildings were removed to hospitals, but only one of the sufferers, J. W. Crabtree, grocer, very severely injured. The is that they or any of the remaining 13 persons who were in the.,buildings are olive to tell the tale of their thrilling The cause of the explosion was at first a mystery, but subsequently Charles" Shaw, an assistant employed by Crabtree, confessed to the detectives that Crabtree, having insured the siock, had been removing it from the shop during the previous two weeks, and that, on the Friday night he arranged some shavings under the staircase and saturated them with benzine and methylated spirits. Shaw then went upacairs, and while he was there an explosion took place. Crabtree, when taxed, denied the truth of Shaw's story. At 22 minutes past 2 o'clock the watchman in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade's tower, which is about a quarter of a mile from the scene of the ruin, was started by an explosion which seemed to shake the* tower. He saw a tongue of flame leap to the sky, followed by a great cloud of smoke and dust. At once he gave the aAa.rm. but the men on duty below were already at their posts They aiso had been aroused by the compelling roar. Constable Reynolds was in Fitzroy street when the thunder of the explosion s

the air. Everything shook —even the ground trembled. Accompanying the roar was a burst of light that made pal© the electric arc lamps in the street. ■ People in the locality jumped from their beds in the belief that an earthquake had occurred. As Constable Reynolds ran towards the scene he heard the screams of women. Running harder, he cam©' to where the buildings had crumbled to a heap of bricks, and everywhere he stepped he trod on broken glass. Small bags of flour had been blown across the street on to a verandah roof, and iron stanchions supporting the verandah had been hurled to the opposite footpath. In the centre of the ruined buildings a fire was fiercely crackling in a heap of light woodwork. On the top of a pile of bricks where only a minute or two before their bedroom hfild stood, in the upper storey of the building, were a man and his wife and baby in night attire. The woman was screaming, "My child! My child! She's there i" pointing to the back of the blazing woodwork. They were Mr W. Sneddon, of the Henri Art Company, and his wife. People were running about in their nijrhft garments shouting, and calling one to the other. Men and women were seeking ther children.. Up the heap of loosely-piled bricks Constable Reynolds climbed, and he helped Mr and Mrs Sned-

don with their baby over the ruins into the street. Mrs Sneddon was bleeding from a cut on the head inflicted by fallingdebris, but her thoughts were not of the injury, but the child in the back room, her little daughter Mabel. " Save my child f she continued to cry, and she pointed towards the flatties. There was no way to the rear of the wrecked buildings fiom the shop fronts, but Constable Reynolds made a detour to a lane running parallel to Brunswick 6treet at the back of the shcps. There he almost stumbled over the form of a man who had .just been recovered by Constables Brennan and Rumford from a heap of bricks lying in the Back yaird of the grocer's shop. The rescued man was Orabtree, the grocer, and he was fully drfssed. With» Mrs Sneddon's cries of " Go to the back, the child is there," ringing in his ears, Constable Reynolds _ jumped over fences and burst in the back doors of partlywrecked buildings, but he and his comrades could not find any trace of her. Chief Officer Lee, of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, had been concentrating his attention on the finding of the little girl. " I'm afraid if there's anybody here she's dead," said a fireman as he surveyed the wreckage. Everybody around him thought so too, but ■what a gasp of amazement and joy they gave when they heard a'soft muffled voice saying reassuringly- " The girl is not dead : he'ee she is." "All right, little one, we'll soon have' you out," called back the firemen confidently, but they knew* it was going to be a difficult task. The child's position was perilous. She had been sleeping in the upper storey in a room at the back of the building. The floor of her bedroom had fallen away, and the bed, with her still lying in it, had slipped.on to the metal ceiling of the room underneath. This ceiling had been broken through, but the bed had rested on a strip of metal work, which dropped on-to a heap of debris, and covered her feet. On the high floor of the lower room a door had been forced from its position, and it stuck in such a way as to protect the little girl's head from falling bricks. Her limbs and a part of her body were covered with debris, but her head was completely protected from the fire that burned close by, but happily the bricks immediately surrounding her were not hot. For a quarter of> an hour the rescuers laboured before they extricated her.

In the upper storey of Mr Jacob Lewis's fruit shop three children were sleeping in two beds when the house fell to pieces. One bed, in which a g.irl ,of 15 years was sleeping, fell with the floor and ceiling of the lower room into the fruit shop. The girl was uninjured. The other bed remained on a strip of flooring just big enough to hold the bedstead. Plaster dropped from the ceiling of the bedroom in which Mr and Mrs W. E. Burkhill lay, and the walls cracked and laths snapped. A piece of glass fell upon Mrs Burkhill, but inflicted no injury. Miss Breen, another inmate of the house, crouched on her bed in terror as the house shook and in places was torn asunder. After the actual result of the explosion the greatest interest ky in the varying theories concerning its cause. Mr Lee (chief officer of the Fire Brigade),, after examining the ruins, declared that in his opinion a coal gas escape was out of the question. He held the idea that some high explosive was used, an opinion shared by Mr O'Callaghan (Chief Commissioner of Police). Most of those who saw the wreck were forced to the same conclusion. It remained, however, for the detectives to solve the mystery. Detectives Bannon, Manning, and Jenkins were on the trail at 4 o'cWk in the morning. Their first clue came from an interview with Thomas Collins, a lad 11 years old, living with his parents in 71 Palmer street. Collins stated during the past fortnight he had seen Cvabtree and Shaw driving a j inker- loaded with goods from the shop towards Nicholson 5 ■at. This statement was corroborated by a little firl, who had noticed the same thing. "Why should a grocer drive loaded linkers full of goods from his shop? The detectives followed up the line of thought su?(?ested by the auestion. They found, firstly, that Crabtree lived at Coburg; secondly, that he had a second shop at North Melbourne; and. thirdly, that he had a loft at the back of No. 178 Lygon street, East Brunswick. Detectives interviewed Crabtree _ at the Melbourne Hospital. He was suffering from a fractured leg and abrasions and burns to the face and body. The interview onened with a question by Detective Manning as to his opinion >f Shaw's bonestv. "Shaw." Drabtree replied, "was trustworthy, truthful, and honest." Then the detectives read Shaw's statement. This elicited a statement in reply. Crabtree's first statement to the detectives was that he was in bed nnetairs when the explosion occurred. This declaration he modified durinir the interview. He stated that on Saturday morning l he and Shaw worked until nasi 2 marking tins. They then went to bed. About in minutes later he went downstairs, and as was groping on a shelf above the stove he noticed that gas was He turned off +he levers of the itove and found matches.. He lit one, and the next thinier he remembered was lyino- under a nfle of bricks in the hack vard and boing nulled out bv the He d«nipd +ha f he had vemoved «rnek fmm the shop to Brunswick. win« that **ie stock in the loft was from the North Mel-

bourn© shop. "Can you give any reason," asked a detective, kt why Shayv should have made such a statement—a diabolical state> ment'to ruin you if it is untrue S" " No,''< said Crabtree, " I can't."

The detectives are satisfied that ShavvV statement is correct.