Four Burned to Death: A Child Thrown from Window and Fatally Injured Four Chinese, including a man, were burned to death carly on Saturday - morning, in a fire which broke out in a ricsha repair shop in Boulevard de Montigny.
six-yenr-old Chinese girl also died as a result of internal injuries sustained in falling from a first floor window.
It is thought that the outbreak occurred through an employee aceidently igniting a drum—of petrol. which the proprietor had brought in at about one o'clock. Owing to the nature of the building, the flames enveloped it within a few minutes, Nine persons were asleep in the upper room, where four people were burned to death. Their only means of exit was through a wall of flamia and those who succeeded in making their escape were burned almost beyond recognition. A panic-stricken mother, also' a victim to the flames, threw her little girl out of the window. The child died_a few hours later in Shantung Road Hospital.
The French Concession Brigade responded to a call for assistance, but though on the spot within a. few minutes after the fire had started, were unable to save the premises as they were already a vaging furnace. Pathetic semes wera witnessed by those below. Those trapped on the first floor were frantic, not at first realizing that their only hope lay in brave ing the flames and dense smoke at the rear of the house. Thanks to the efficient manner in which the Brigada dealt with the outbreak, the fire did not spread to adjacent buildings. The injured people were removed tq tha Shantung Road Hospital in the Brigade lorries.
Sin William runyate.. Vice-Cheneellor of Hongkong University. and Lady Brunyate have returned to Hongkong from Australia.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.