SERIES OF TRAGEDIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3592, 16 January 1923, Page 21

SERIES OF TRAGEDIES.

FATAL FIRE IN DUBLIN. LONDON, January :8. , While children were playing with fireworks iii a street at Summerhill, Dublin, on Sunday night, a lighted squib entered a shop basement and fell into an oil tank, which exploded. Sheets of flame shot up to the ceiling. Streams of burning oil flooded the basement, and within a couple of minutes the whole building was burning, cutting off four families who were living above. A crowd gathered, and soldiers held out coats and mattresses. One mother threw out her children, all 'being safely caught. Those in the upper stories w»re too high to jump, but the fire brigade saved some. Mrs Fennell and her two infants and Mrs Brophv and her daughter perished. Mr Brophv is missing. It is believed that ho was killed. The bodies were not recognisable. • GIRL’S DEATH JUST BEFORE .V MARRIAGE. LONDON, Januarv 13. Clad in her nightdress, Ethel Russell, the daughter of an East Ham doctor, left her bedroom in a state of somnambulism, and went to her father’s surgery,, where she mixed a drug in a cup and drank it. Her mother found her daughter dead in the surgery in the morning. Evidence at the inquest showed that the girl had never been happier. She was to be married in a fortnight. Apparently the taste of the drug awoke her suddenly, and the shock caused her death from syncope. WOMAN’S TRAGIC FATE. LONDON, January 13. . Mrs Knapton left a fancy dress dance at the village institute near Frome. She was walking home in a costume largely made of cotton-wool and was carrying an acetylene lamp. Her dress caught fire. A stream was nearby, and the woman, mad with fear, rushed to the bank, plunged into the icy water, and was drowned. Meanwhile, her husband and her son, who were stopping up for her, grew anxious. They found bits of her scorched costume. Footmarks on the riverbank revealed the rest of the tragedy. PATIENT’S DEATH FROM BURNS, PARIS, January 13. Doctor Colombet has beerk charged with culpable homicide. He placed Madame Cabine, an appendicitis case, on an operating tablej he.it by an electric radiator. As he administered cocaine, the woman cried, “I am being burnt.” The doctor replied: Tlhat is the cocaine. The woman became insensible. After the operation it was found that her legs and back were terribly burnt. The coils of the radiator were red hot. The patient died in horrible agony ‘within three days. - - * -**£»*<£