TERRIBLE SCENES IN LONDON.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3106, 15 March 1883, Page 3

TERRIBLE SCENES IN LONDON.

About half-past nine o’clock on Monday night, Jan. 22, a serious fire,by which five Jives have been lost and several persons seriously injured, took place in a dwelling house at 5, Windsorstreet, London, in the heart of a poor and densely-crowded district. The house contained eight rooms, and was let out in tenements to a number of families ; in fact, without exception, each room was occupied by a separate family, the whole forming a colony of nearly 60 person. The fire was first discovered by a man named Frogley, a carpet weaver, who is in the habit of filling in his spare time at nights by doing work for packing-case makers. He was so enengaged in the cellar of the house shortly after 9 o’clock, when ho heard an unusual cracking noise in a room above him, viz, the back room of the ground floor, which was tenanted by a newspaper vendor named Frank Fuller. Hastening upstairs Frogley found the door locked, the Fullers being out j but the same noise continued and resembled, he said, the smashing of crockery. Certain that there was something wrong, and suspecting fire, be shouted an alarm, and was at once assisted by a lodger named George Barnes, who at the moment entered the front passage with the intention of going up to his own rooms. As there was now a smell of fire and some appearance of smoke issuing from under the door, Frogley wisely thought it would be advisable not to force the door open, but hurried round to the back yard, where he attempted to tear down the shutters of .the room, and at the same time began filling a pail with water from the pump well. Meantime Barnes had forced the room door open, but had at once to retreat owing to the smoke and flames which burst forth from the apartment. To make matters still worse, the current of air from the open front door fanned the flames, which instantly caught the staircase, thus putting of the means of escape for ' those in the upper rooms. Amongst tliese were no less than nine of

law, wife, and seven children. Just before the staircase became impassable j a man named Murphy, living in a back room on tbe upper floor, rushed I down with his crippled son, but in atttempting to return for his wire and two children, found to bis dismay, that the staircase was in flames. In the midst of this excitement a fire escape and hose cart arrived, followed soon by the brigade and Though there was a plentiful supply of water, the flames spread so rapidly that it became impossible to save the burning house, and very difficult to rescue the terrified inmates. Five of them unfortunately perished, and others were seriously injured by desperate h 10 ? 8 from the second-floor window, John Frogloy, a lad of sixteen, heroically assisted his mother in saving the younger children, six in number, by dropping them from the window into the street, where they were caught by the crowd. Mrs Frogley seeing no other hope of escape, then dropped from the window, and suffered serious injury in the fall. Meantime her mother, aged 70, who had been left alone in her own room on the first floor, was saved uninjured, dropping safely into a stout bed quilt held below by two or three persons. The lad John Frogley, after seeing all the others out of their room dropped from the window ledge uninjured. Several other persons were rescued by the fire-escape. Mrs Murphy and another of the persons who perished were seen at a widow on the third floor before the fire-escape had been adjusted, but soon fell hack into the smoke and flame, and were not again seen alive. A soldier, named Galloway, escaped along a parapet from the top floor to tbe roof of the adjoining house, but his father and mother, being overcome by the smoke, perished. The fire was extinguished after eleven o’clock, and about midnight all the bodies of the victims had been recovered. These were Patrick Galloway, 73; Mary Ann Galloway, 63; Mary Ann Murphy, 31; her son Eugenie 13, and daughter Kate, 6 years. Those more severely injured were conveyed to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, in Commercial street. Mrs Sarah Frogley, 34, lies in a dangerous condition, with a fractured skull and broken ribs, and two of her children, Lucy and Martha, have sustained scalp wounds and shocks to the system, Teddy Frogly, 11, is at Guy’s Hospital with a broken thigh and fractured jaw. Several other persons are being attended to as out-patients. The origin of tbe fire is unknown.