TRAGEDY AVERTED.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1789, 7 November 1919, Page 7

TRAGEDY AVERTED.

FIRE IN THE CITY. OCCUPANTS INTOXICATED. Only the timely arrival of the City Fire Brigade this morning averted a traged}' in a house situated at 353 Barbadoes Street. The occupants were four men- and one woman —the latter being the mother of one of the men. The men were mostly in a state that can only be described as drunken imbecility. One of them, when discovered, was incapable of movement. Intoxicated, he lay on a bed in one of the front rooms of the house while the flames broke around him, without sufficient sense or power to make an effort to save himself. To the bystanders who, to save him, carried him' out, he appeared to be a corpse. Dirty, bedraggled, and with blackened face, he presented a spectacle repulsive to look at. He was laid on a sack in the back yard of the premises, and subsequently explained, in a maudlin way, that he had been trying to light a cigarette and the bed-clothes caught fire. The other occupants had been able to get out of the house themselves, but apparently did not have sufficient intelligence left to try to rescue the insensible man in the front room.

Another of the occupants of the house was found by The Sun representative in a back shed. He, too, seemed oblivious to what was passing around him. A third man staggered away down the street, and the fourth sat stupidlooking, like an Indian fakir, on the doorstep of an adjoining shop. The woman, whose name is Jessie Webb, and who owned and occupied the house, was sober. She stated, in answer to an inquiry from The 'Suh representative, that the fire had been smouldering since 7 o'clock this morning. She could offer no explanation as to why help had not been summoned earlier. The house is built of brick, and has four rooms. Very little damage was done to it by the fire, but the contents —such as they were—were damaged. A tour through the house was not calculated to improve one's appetite. Disgusting disorder prevailed, the indications being that the place was one that ought to have long ago been "cleaned up" by the authorities. The house is very old —probably one of the oldest in the city—and amongst those who gathered to watch events were heard many criticisms that some action had not previously been taken to put an end to the conditions obtaining. Two of the occupants, who were in the most advanced state of intoxication, were removed to the Police Station.