A fire broke out on Wednesday night, in the house
of Mr. Josephs, a hatter and general salesman, No. 19, Monmouth Street. It was first discovered by a neighbour, who saw some smoke issuing from the front of the house. He went and felt the shutters, which he found to be quite hot. He then gave the alarm to his neighbours, and with their assistance forced open one of the shutters ; when the flames immedi• ately rushed through, and, the fresh air being admitted, the interior of the shop soon became one body of fire. In five minutes tine flames reached the first floor. Every effort was made to arouse the inmates, who were very numerous, as the house was let out to lodgers. The first person who was seen was a female, with an infant in her arms, at one of the second-floor windows; shrieking for assistance. The thick smoke which arose from below soon obliged her to retire. The crowd seemed stupified with horror, and no one ran for a ladder to save this poor creature. The fire-engines soon arrived ; but, owing to some mismanagement, the roof of the house.took fire before they began to play upon it. They then directed their exertions to save the adjoining houses ; in which they succeeded. In the mean while, some of the in. mates of the .burning•dwelling had made their escape, and were to be seen running about inquiring for their children, wives,.and husbands; in frantic distress. The exact number of those who have perished has not beenascertained. Five,bodies have been dug out.of the ruins; and they are recognized as those of a family which occupied the second floor, where the womanevas seen.with her infant, and of a young woman who occupied a back room on the.same.floor. Three other persons are
missing. The fire is supposed to havearisen from neglect in managing the gas.
The house of Mr. Johnstone, a stationer in Great Bath Street, Clerkenwell, was completely destroyed by fire on Thursday night. The 'stock, furniture, and property of Mr. Johnstone, and some person who lodged in the house, were also burnt. Mr. Johnstone was partly insured.
A shopkeeper of Spitalfields was sitting on the fore part of the Hero,
• a Gravesend steam-packet, on Sunday last, when he suddenly lost his balance and fell overboard. Being an expert swimmer, he had sufficient presence of mind to strike off at once into the water, and thus got clear of the vessel and its paddles. He was taken up by a punt about one hundred yards from the steam-boat, which was stopped for hiM. On Thursday morning about seven o'clock, as three boys were pro- -needing down the Thames in a boat, they were run down opposite Bugsby's Marshes, BlaCkwall Reach, by a lighter that had escaped from its moorings; and all three perished.
Mr. Nathan. Martindale, a clerk in the employ of Messrs. Clementi and Co. of Cheapside, drowned himself last week, in his own cistern. He was found with his head and body in the cistern, and his legs pro- jected outside.
Alexander McCrae, a gunner of the 4th battalion of Guards, stationed at Woolwich, cut his throat in a fit of temporary derangement on Sa- turday la-t.
Samuel Heylett, a soldier in the Royal Horse Guards Blue, cut his throat on Tuesday morning, at the barracks in the Regent's Park.
Alexander Macpherson, formerly footman to Sir Robert Peel, was knocked down and killed in Charles Street, Westminster, a kw days ago, by two post-horses, in charge of a post-boy who has not been dis- covered.
A dreadful accident happened on Wednesday afternoon to a very fine young man, named Warp, in the employ of Mr. Joseph Owen, skin-broker, Upper Thames Street, whilst loading a cart with bales of skins. Three bales were in the cart, and a fourth set up, when Ware crying out "set," the horse in the cart started off, and the pour fellow fell out, and pitched upon his bead. He was conveyed in an insensible state to Guy's Hospital, but was not expected to recover.
Two bricklayers, father and son, were engaged on Wednesday in pointing the outside of a house in Brompton, when one of the spars driven into the bricks for the purpose of supporting the scaffolding, sud- denly gave way, and both father and son were in an instant precipitated into the area of the adjoining house. They were conveyed without loss of time-to St. George's Hospital ; but a few minutes alter they reached the Hospital the sun expired.
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