The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-03 00:00:00

DREADFUL FIRE.

PORTSMOUTH, Friday.—A fire broke out in a
house in College-street, Portsea, this morning,
which caused the destruction of the house and the
loss of seven lives. A Mr. Palmer, a cattle dealer,
residing in Portsea, was passing through College-
street towards his home, when he saw that a house
and shop, occupied by a boot and shoe maker named
Dennett Keene was on fire, apparently in the shop.
He immediately gave an alarm, and the Dockyard
engine, with a body of nearly 50 of the Dockyard
(metropolitan) police, under Mr. Superintendent
Guy, was almost immediately in front of the house.
The flames by this time were bursting through the
upper windows, and it was evident the house was
on fire throughout from floor to roof. A wo-
man, who rented the second floor from Keene,
dropped her child to the people in the street below
from her window, and escaped herself in the same
way. Keene himself also made his escape in a si-
milar manner, but his wife and six children
were known to be inside the burning house.
For twenty minutes the powerful engine of the
Dockyard police stood in front of the fire useless for
want of water, none being obtainable from the
water company's mains. A publican living a few
doors off suddenly remembered that he had a large
unused cellar under his hose, which from the defec-
tive state of the town drainage was generally full of
water. The cellar flap was wrenched off at once
by a policeman's crowbar, and the cellar was found,
fortunately, to have in it a considerable depth of
water. The suction house was at once passed down,
in company with that of the borough police engine,
which had also arrived, and both engines began to
play upon the fire. The fire, however, was not sub-
dued until the roof and flooring had all fallen in,
and everything but the bare walls was destroyed.
The fire did not extend, however, to the adjoining
houses, which is attributed as much to the strength
and substance of the party walls as to the action of
the engines. Keene himself states that he, his wife,
and two friends were sitting in the sitting-room at
the back of the shop celebrating the new year.
Their six children were asleep in the top rooms (the
house is a three storied one), and their lodger and
her child were in the middle room over the shop.
They suddenly heard a crackling noise in the shop,
and on opening the door found it full of flames.
The two friends rushed out of the back-door and
escaped over a wall. Keene and his wife rushed
upstairs to save their children, callin; to their
lodger as they went by her room. From this point
nothing can be learnt beyond that no fire was at
first found in ascending the stairs by Keene and his
wife, but the smoke was rising in dense masses
from below, and rendered it, Keene says, impos-
sible to breathe, so that he was compelled to
make his escape while he had breath and strength
left. The woman pertinaciously stood by the
chance of recovering her children, and perished
with them. It is the opinion of Mr. Superin-
tendent Guy, that Mrs. Keene and her children
must have been partially suffocated and insensible
from the smoke before the fire reached them. It is
also certain that they must all have been dead by
the time the police engine first arrived, so that had
there been, as there ought, an ample supply of water
in the mains, it would have been useless for saving
life. The charred bodies have all been recovered
coroner.
from'the ruins, and await an inquest by the borough

This of itself is sufficiently discouraging, but it is
not the worst part of the public sorrow. Volun-
teering for the army has ceased. The conscription
cannot be put in force. More than 100,000 men
have deserted since June last. The officers, who are
for the most part appointed for political and not
for military reasons, are incompetent, and inspire
the men with no confidence, The time of many of
the regiments has expired. The nine months' vo-
lunteers have served six months and will not renew.
The men are not paid their money, and are greatly
dissatisfied. The inaction of winter quarters will
more than decimate the ranks by the diseases which
are certain to occur in the camp wherever the camp
may be fixed. The soldiery are losing heart as well
as the people, and are fast coming to the conclu-
sion that, managed as they have been managed,
victory can never reward their efforts. Slaugh-
tered in vain at Fredericksburg with as much
method as if they had been swine at Cincinnati, they
ask one another why they should risk another such
contest, without hope of achieving anything by it.
Five of the ships that were chartered by the Go-
vernment to convey the troops of General Banks to
his destination, wherever that may be, are rotten
tubs, utterly unseaworthy, and have put into Phila-
delphia and other ports in stress of weather, where
they have been condemned as unfit for further ser-
vice. General Banks, when he reaches his destina-
tion, will probably have an insufficient number :of
men, in consequence of this scandalous break down,
to carry out his plans, and will, at the best, make a
useless lodgment in the enemy's country, and hold
no more of it than the ground his camp will oc-
cupy, or that the range of his guns can protect.
The Federal expedition up the Neun River, con-
ducted by General Foster, which was, it appears, to
have played the important part of alarming the
Confederates for the safety of Richmond in the rear,
while Burnside was to beleaguer it in front, has
taken the little town of Kingston, but done nothing
to render the capture of Richmond more probable
than if it had never started. The Government is one
day beset by dishonest shipowners, who have in-
fluence enough over Mr. Lincoln or his secretaries
to persuade him to undertake naval expeditions, of
which the only real purpose is the sale or charter-
ing of their rotten craft ; and on another by equally
dishonest and scheming railroad directors and ma-
nagers, who denounce all naval expeditions as un-
called for, and urge the transport of troops by rail
as the only possible salvation of the country. Mr.
Chase cannot get his paper money printed fast
enough to pay the soldiers, and the price of every
article of food and clothing has doubled. With
corruption and imbecility everywhere and con-
fidence nowhere, and with Washington all but
undefended, and liable at any moment to be
captured by " Stonewall" Jackson or some other
preux chevalier of the South, is it surprising
that the American people should be sad at
heart ? Or will it be surprising to find hereafter
that for such desperate situation they adopt a des-
perate remedy ?In grim jest, which is considerably BRMSII COLUMBIA.—The newspapers of Nov.
more than three-fourths grim earnest, there are state that many of the miners had arrived in Vic-
people who suggest that the best solution of the toria for the winter, bringing news from "up country." At
difficulty would be the installation of Mr. Jefferson Lightning Creek the Shaft Company had been raising about
Davis as President in lieu of Mr. Lincoln—a new 100 oz. a day, and the Campbell Company had taken above
Confederation of North and South, leaving out the 100,000 dols. out of a claim in three months. On Barker
New England States altogether, or making them a Claim, Williams's Creek, there was taken in one week, with a
present to the British Government as an addendum single pick, going clay and night, 1,7000 z. of gold dust. A rich
jugatas they would subjugate the South—and quartz lead has been discovered in Cariboo. The discovery
to Canada; or, if that were inadmissible, their sub-
re
eam chieft there
e rteopfi of
for
r2ot,hoeosoe
miners,p apers.
It gisoladssinertthede
tPheaatc tehße riev River
is is
their reduction to the condition of a conquered de- and that the region is more accessible than the Cariboo,
pendency, held by and governed by the sword. And and has a much milder climate and longer season, being a
if such a question could be put to the vote of the less elevated country, and more of open prairie. The large
people of New York, of the middle and border party of emigrants from Canada an] Red River settlement
States, and of the Great West, the chances are that who made their way down Fraser River a short time ago
it would be carried by a very magnificent ' majority left part of their number, 30 persons, at Tete Jauno Cache,
; near the head of the river, to bring the animals down to the
so great is the revulsion of feeling that has taken Thompson River, where they expected to be able to winter
place
on the question of negro slaves and abolition them. This company have arrived in -Victoria. One of their
—the incitements to servile war held out by Mr. number was a woman, the first white woman who ever
Lincoln—the subversion of the Constitution, and passed through
fthatht tract of country, and the journey was
the mismanagement of every department of the
the way, she gave birth to ea
girl. She had walkmedootphse, 295
public service that has signalised the Republican miles from Tete Jauno Cache, carrying
.her little daughter
Administration since its assumption of office. The of four years old on her back, and accompanied by her
press of New York does
not as a rule reflect public !two
children, six and eight years of age.
opinion, but, with some honourable exceptions, 1 The Copenhagen Dagbladt of the 30th December
writes for a rowdy public of the lowest moral and k says that the King had held a council of state at
intellectual grade. It has blown the war trumpet his chateau, at Fredensborg, the day before, at :which
obstreperously long after the edge of the public all the Ministers wore present. It iv. as supposed that the
reply to Earl Russell's despatch of November the 20th
appetite for war had been blunted, but, awakening
was among the matters submitted to the council.
at last to the real condition of the national mind,
Importing tea without colour on the loaf prevents
which is one of disgust fast ripening into indigna-
the Chinese passing off inferior brown leaves as in the usual
tion, it has blown with unparalleled unanimity a kinds. Horniman's tea is uncoloured, therefore always
still louder war-note PgafinA the President and the good alike, Seld in packets by 2,280 agents,

Destruction of the Sunnyside Works,

Salford.

On Thursday, at midnight, a fire broke out in the
bleaching and finishing works of Mr, Henry Stat-
ham, late Messrs. Thorpe and Statham, Sunnyside
Works, Ordsal-lane, Salford. These works are
very extensive; they comprise a four-story mill,
measuring in length about 180 feet and two-story
finishing, pressing, and packing rooms. The mill
runs down to the bank of the Irwell, and is hugged
on both sides by large mills. We are informed
that no work had been in operation during the day,
which, being New Year's-day, is customarily a holi-
day. On the appearance of the fire a messenger
was despatched to the Salford Town-hall for the fire-
engine, and before its arrival a large number of
men voluntarily entered the burning building, and
the houses in the neighbourhood were stored w ith the
goods that were saved. The mill was an old one, and
was filled with a very valuable stock, business hav-
ing been exceedingly good and all the hands being
in constant employment. The fire made rapid pro-
gress, and before the arrival of the fire brigade had
obtained a complete mastery of the building. The
floors burnt through in rapid succession, a loud re-
port marking the moment that each story gave way.
The roof seemed to be burnt through in sections, and
as each portion fell pillars of fire and smoke shot up
into the heavens to great heights, illuminating the
district by the fierceness of their glow, and people in
streets a considerable distance off shrank before the
intensity of the hot breezes that were borne on the
wind. The Salford File Brigade, under Mr. Super-
intendent Atherton, worked heroically. The men
scrambled up the roofs of the adjacent building,
and, standing upright on the stone window-sills of
rooms in an adjoining mill which had caught fire,
directed jets of water upon the flames. Masses of
burning ruins fell into the midst of groups of fire-
men who from the ground were directing streams
of water upon the interior of the building, and great
apprehensions were at one time excited for the
safety of some men who had`penetrated into the en-
gine-room, and who, with flames on every hand
stood with great coolness playing on the burning
mass. A large quantity of burning ruins fell while
the men stood in the position described, and com-
pletely obscured them for a moment from sight, but
thaneyd
apparently
erensetelny
towhen
b e standing the s m
iok e
in the
clearede same
awayposition,
unhurt. The mill, which was burnt up to the wall
of Mr. Statham's, was occupied by Mr. B• 11. t
mg on,
and was used for the manufacture of smallwares.
One end caught fire, but the damage will be, com-
paratively speaking, slight. There was a large
police force on the ground to keep the crowd in
order, and, as there were many officious drunken
men, the police had plenty of work. The total da-
mage is upwards of £20,000, but the building and
contents also, we believe, are insured.