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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9162, 3 June 1901, Page 4

s I From Saturday's Auckland Herald we g take the following particulars : t Miss Dora Wallace, the housemaid, must have sustained some internal rupture b that caused her death. The deceased a occupied a bedroom on the top storey, at t the rear corner of the main building, and between the window and the pavement where she jumped there is a drop of some c 30ft. The body of the deceased, as 0 viewed at the hospital morgue, gave the impression that Miss Wallace must have struck the wall m falling, as all down the ° right side, from head to foot, were abra- " sions, m addition to which there were 8 several bruises, evidently caused when the I body struck the ground. The abrasions Jj were more marked on the right side of the face, the hip, and down the full ' length of the leg. The deceased was a valued servant of the proprietor, and was very popular with the visitors .to the I house. She recently returned from a L trip to the Old Country, where she had I been on a visit to her people. r Upon inquiry at the hospital a Herald \ reporter learned that none of the injured h women were able to see anyone, and they h were all m a serious condition. The 1 exact nature of the injuries has not been o ascertained, and it will be a day or two i before the doctors can speak with certain- a ty as to the extent. Miss Boyd is very j badly bruised, is suffering from shock, ', and it is possible there may be some internal injuries. Miss Morse sustained a j fracture of the arm at the elbow, a punctured wound on the knee, and is severely bruised all over. Miss Meyers is suffering from general bruising, and m this case 1 also there may possibly be some internal J injuries. From particulars gathered, it seems that when the barmaids awoke to their danger the flames had already penetrated to their bedrooms, situated next to the Masonic Hall, on the top floor, as i when they rushed to the door they found escape m this direction cut off. This left them no other means of exit but the window, and Miss Meyers naturally showed some reluctance to cast herself k out of the window, which meant a drop a of about 30ft on to the hard asphalt pave- h ment qf the narrow alley-way running n between the hall and the hotel. Miss Boyd, however, came to the rescue of her £ fellow-worker by insisting upon her taking the leap, and was thus probably the means of depriving the flames of another victim. I At the inquest on the bodies of the three Johnston children, Henry Jones, the night porter, said: Shortly before one o'clock this morning I was m the hall at the foot of the stairs m the front of the building on the upper ground floor. There were two ground floors, the bock being on a lower level than the front. I « had gone there from the boot house/ I had just finished cleaning the boots. The boothouse was adjacent to the well, the bottom of which was reached by a flight of about twelve steps. I was m the Boot- - room- between half-an-hour. and threequarters of an hour. The door that led into the well was closed during that time. There was no window from that room j looking into the well. I left the boothouse by the door that 'led into a pas- 8 sage, which afterwards leads into the j main hall. On reaching the main hall - from the passage, the two being divided by swing doors, I saw smoke there ; that fl is, m the hall, when I opened the swing doors. On looking up the open staircase I saw there was smoke on the first floor also. I then thought there was a fire. I ran up the staircase to the first floor, ahd went to the door of Mr Johnston's £ room. I opened tbe door and shouted the alarm to Mr Johnston. I was also t f iving the alarm as I was going upstairs, j Ir Johnston's room was oh the side of g the hotel nearest the harbor. When I g was wakening Mr Johnston I noticed fl smoke coming along the corridor on the other side of that floor. The smoke appeared to be coining from the back portion of the house. I had been round 4 that part of the building collecting the boots about half-an-hour or three-quarters of an hour before this. On that floor I collected boots outside the door of No. 34 room. I believe they were Mr Craven's boots. As far as lam aware, No. 34 was the only room on that corridor occupied that night. There were twp win- f dows only from that corridor, both lead- - ing into tbe well. I cannot say whether these windows or either of them were opened or closed. Ido hot know, as a matter of fact, that some ladders arrived on Thursday, but I heard Mr Johnston Say he was getting ladders fixed to the two front balconies. After I wakened Mr Johnston I went down the corridor S where I saw smoke coming from, and 1 saw the flames sweeping along the passage like wildfire. By Mr Martin: I was not carrying any light with me when I collected the boots. • There was a gas jet burning m the corridor. On the top floor the gas was out, and I struck a match to get the _ boots. That is nowhere near where I J saw the smoke. „.-,, the inqueeit wa^ then adjourned «£ June 17th. J