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2 corrections, most recently by tctwood - Show corrections

DESTRUCTIVE FIRE AT SAND-

RIDGE.--TWO LIVES LOST.  

The most calamitous event that has yet visited Sandridge — involving the burning to death of two human beings, and the destruc- tion of property to the value of £2,000 — oc- curred early yesterday morning. About a quarter past two a.m., a man named William Kemp, who slept in a room at the back of the premises of Mr. John Warne, cab- proprietor and lodging-house keeper, in

Bay-street, having occasion to come out-   side the dwelling, observed a light in

one of the back rooms of Mr. Warne's   house — which was a wooden structure, sepa-

rated from the Napier Hotel, by a carriage way — and on looking through the window, he

saw that one of the walls was on fire. He at   once burst into the room, and aroused John Cannon, a cab-driver, who was sleeping   there, and the alarm of "Fire" was then,   given. All the inmates of Mr. Warne's house, as was supposed at the time, turned out, and assisted the local fire brigade, which   was promptly on the spot, in its exertions

to extinguish the flames ; but the neighbour-   ing buildings being of wood and lined with canvas, it was found impossible to stay the progress, of the conflagration. The fire ex- tended backwards to Mr. Warne's stables, and thence across towards Beach-street, de- vouring successively in its course Mr. Urqu- hart's plumber's shop, a small store kept by Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Beaney's boot-shop,  

Mr. Carpenter's hairdressing establishment,  

and Mr. Doubledann's store,. The flames   had now reached tho back of the Pier   Hotel, a large and substantial brick build- ing, and it was at one time thought that the hotel might be saved, but the united exertions of the three fire brigades (the Mel- bourne and Emerald-hill brigades having ar- rived just as the destruction of the wooden tenements had been completed),were unable

to preserve it. In a short time the hotel was   completely gutted, the roof fell in, and nothing now remains but the bare walls. The Royal Hotel, in Bay-street, was also in great danger for some time, but this building fortunately escaped with slight injury. The fire was finally got under at four o'clock,

leaving the block of buildings from the Royal   Hotel, in Bay-street, to tho Bethel-reserve, in Beach-street, a mass of cinders.

When the excitement occasioned by the     conflagration had somewhat abated, the

absence of one of Mr. Warne's boarders,   Chas. Cullen Struttle, a gentleman who for- merly held a commission in the East India Company's service, and who subsisted by

means of a pension and occasional employ-   ment at Mr. Swallow's biscuit manufactory, was noticed, and fears began to be enter- tained that he had perished in the fire. Search was made among the ruins, and what is believed to have been Mr. Struttle's body was soon afterwards found but it pre- sented the appearance of a charred mass, and the police were not satisfied that it was a human body until a medical gen- tleman had borne testimony to the fact. There was no suspicion that anyone else had been burnt, as all the other lodgers had been seen in safety after the fire broke out ; but when daylight came the charred remains of Arthur Callaghan, or   O'Callaghan, a cab-driver who lodged in the house, were found among the embers. O'Callaghan came out of the house on the first alarm, and it is supposed that he went upstairs again for his box, and that he had reached the back door of the lower story, with the property in his possession, when he was overpowered by the smoke, as he ap- peared to,have fallen there on his hands and knees, with the box beside him. The re- mains of both bodies were placed in shells, and removed to the Chusan Hotel, where they await the inquest, which will be held at noon to-day.

It is believed that tho fire originated by accident in Cannon's room, where it was first discovered. Cannon went to bed at half-past one o'clock, with a lighted candle, which he placed on a table near the wall of his bed- room, and it is probable that this set fire to the calico lining after he had gone to sleep.

Mr. Warne is a severe sufferer, and the disaster will also press very heavily on the small shopkeepers whose premises were de- stroyed. These persons were all uninsured, and they have lost their all. The Pier Hotel belongs to Mr. W. T. J. Clarke, who owns the whole of the ground over which the fire spread. Mr. J. Bell, the licensee of the Pier Hotel, had his stock and furniture insured for £900. In Mr. Warne's stables were seventeen horses, and one of thom was burnt to death, A number of cars were saved with great

difficulty, and a buggy was burned. The . wind was fortunately blowing from the north-west, or the Royal Hotel and a number of wooden buildings in its rear

must have been sacrificed. When the conflagration was at its height the effect was frightful, the highly-combustible na-

ture of the materials producing a flame, of extraordinary volume and brilliancy. Every part of Sandridge was brilliantly lit   up, and the shipping in tho bay were distinctly, visible. A very large crowd collected to wit- ness the fire, and the local police, under direction of Sergeant O'Brien, did good ser- vice in preserving order.

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