A VERY HOT BATH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2430, 19 February 1909, Page 2

A VERY HOT BATH.

EXTRAORDINARY FREAK. FATAL RESULT. A wool-washer named Paul Alorton, 51 years of -age. a single man, came to Sydney in December last to spend a holiday. He had been in the habit of visiting tho metropolis annually during the past ten years, and it had been his custom for some years to put up at a boarding house at 61 Marketstreet. On January 16, about halfpast 9 a.in., he went to the Turkish baths at 159 Elizabeth-street, and said he wanted a very hot bath. The attendant said that when Alorton enterecl the 'baths he seemed to be under i he influence of liquor. He was given a warm shower first, -and then passed int-o the hot-air room, where the temperature stands at an -average tof about 180, the attendant telling him to remain there from 5 to 10 minutes. The latter left to look after other customers, and returned to the hot-air room in about seven or eight minutes. Morton had then disappeared. Search was made for him all over the establishment without avail. The hotair room was again examined, and the attendant. Bernard Henry Hahn, noticed that an asbestoes door or shutter about 28 inches by 21 inches had been removed. This leads to what is known as the flue-cleaning room, a space which is only sufficient for one man to move about for the purpose of cleaning the flues, a work that is only done at rare intervals. The temperature in that space, -it may be added, is -about 500 degrees, the one side being a brick wall, and. the otliei the back part of the furnace. To Hahn’s consternation, he heard someone talking in the fluo-ioom, and he at once jumped through the- aper-

Lire, and tried to get the man out. With the tremendous heat and the excitement he was laboring under,, he was unable to do so_,_ and went for tiie assistance of a fc 1 low-employee. They then found Morton sitting on the door of the room with his hands round his knees. Morton,.who.said he wanted to be left there, was got out with great difficulty, and carried upstairs and placed on one of the marble slabs, where it was found that lie was badly burned on the hack, on the arms, near the side, on- the buttocks, and on other parts of the body, evidently having been partly roasted through having come in direct contact with the back of the lurngce, or the almost equally bob bricks. A policeman was immediately called in, and Morton was taken to the Sydney Hospital, where he lingered until the 2rd, when he died from the effects if the burns. The above facts were elicited at an inquest held by the City Coroner (Air. *5. Murphy) on February 3. It was also stated that- deceased drank co excess, and was generally in a muddled stale. The Coroner found that death was due to burns accidentally received.

An examination of the premises shows that an ordinary person would as soon think of crawling into the furnace itself as into the place deceased entered with such dire results.