Presumably the outbreak started in the front of the hotel, which is a large two-storey wooden building. It was discovered at 3.15 a.m. by Mrs Moffatt, who gave the alarm.
Twenty people were staying in the house, and the stairs were found impassable. The children and women were rescued by male boarders from the upstairs windows.
The fire spread across the street to Mr Piercey's shop, containing inflammable stock, and on the other side across a wide right-of-way to McConnell's and the hotel stables. The newest two-storey portion of McConnell's store was saved.
There is no brigade at Mataura, and no water was available. The cause of the fire is a mystery so far.
• Practically every farmer in Pelorus and Queen Charlotte Sounds now runs his own motor launch (says a Marlborough paper). There are, it is estimated, nearly three hundred launches on the Sounds, and these convenient craft, together with that other convenience, the telephone, have improved the lot of the isolated farmer immensely.
The latest development of the launch enterprise is the construction of a large motor boat, driven by a 20 horse-power engine, for the purpose of carrying passengers and collecting cream from the various farmers along the Sound and conveying it to the central factory at Picton.
The cost of running the launch, it is stated, is not more than 10 1/2d per hour, the oil coming from the Taranaki petroleum wells.
• Captain H. V. Barclay, who returned to Melbourne recently from the Northern Territory after three years' exploration work, in discussing the mosquitoes of the district, told of one persistent variety which measures an inch long, with a boring plant designed to make a way through any tropical attire.
It has a habit of settling on the middle of the back just out of reach, and drilling a way to the flesh till the victim cries out in pain, and obtains relief by rubbing his spine against the nearest tree.
There are over 100 distinct mosquito specimens in Captain Barclay's collection, and a large percentage of them are deadly foes of humanity. They are responsible for almost all the tropical diseases, and their infection produces practically all the ill-health of the empty North.
There is no denying that one of the plagues of Australia is the mosquito, and particularly in the tropical area it has, until recently, been productive of not only untold misery to the new chum, but the instrument of considerable disease, including the dreaded dengue fever and other troubles.
Swarming in stagnant water between the city and coast, the mosquito was a pest of the most pronounced order in Brisbane until a year ago; but, through the labours of Dr Elkington, assisted by Sir William MacGregor, the Governor, all stagnant water was systematically coated with crude oil, and a by-law passed compelling private householders to screen or allow their tanks to be covered with fine wire netting.
For a time there was little to show for the work (says the Sydney Daily Telegraph), but last year the absence of the pest was remarkable, and if the effort is continued there seems every likelihood of complete eradication.
- ODT, 3.1.1914
