On Monday evening the large drapery establishment of Messrs. Arding
and Hobbs at Clapham Junction was com- pletely destroyed by fire. As many as four hundred assistants were employed by the firm, and at the time of the disaster the , shop was crowded with customers making their Christmas purchases. The fire, which seems to have been caused b3k the fusing of an electric wire in a window, spread with very great rapidity, with the result that some of the assistants upon the upper floors of the building found themselves cut off. Many of these were forced to jump from the windows, and so received serious, and unfortunately in some cases fatal, injuries. Although a loss of at least eight lives is sufficiently terrible, we cannot help feeling that it was only the courage and self-control of all those involved which prevented a much graver calamity.
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