The houses affected by the fire are much dovetailed into each other at this point. Mr. Pearce occupies a room which is over a great portion of Mr. Cresswell's shop, and Mr. Cresswell's first floor front extends over a room used by Messrs. Bacon, Cobbold and Co., for their banking business. Between these rooms is a substantial wall, but it is borne upon an iron girder thrown across iron columns so as to clear the shop below of parting walls. In the wall is the chimney into which the fire-places of Mr. Pearce's and Mr. Cresswell's room are built back to back. As the wall is borne upon an iron girder, the hearths are worked upon the same, and the brickwork is corbelled out so as to gain the necessary width for a footing for the chimney jambs. We are particular in describing this construction, because it must have been at this point that the fire originated; but in what precise manner is not so readily seen. There are massive beams supporting the floor, resting upon the iron girder we have spoken of, and these beams were destroyed by the firre. Indeed, the main portion of the structural damaged is done to the floor of Mr. Cresswell's room, of which a portion six or seven feet square, next the hearth, is burned entirely away. One of these beams is not less than eight inches square, and the joists near it are also very stout. It is probable that the beams were very dry, and that by some means or other a cinder from the fire found its way behind the hearth-stone, and the beam, once ignited, may have smoulderd for days. Mr. Cresswell's fire was not lighted in that room on Monday. There are some gas pipes near the hearth under the floor, and between it and the ceiling of the room beneath, one of the metal pipes was melted, and the gas escaping, helped to increase the volume of the flame, but at the same time this could hardly have caused the fire, however much it may have fed the flames once it was cause. The floor of the room was covered with stout Kamptulicon, and over that was a thick, heavy carpet, and the effect of these was to exclude the air from the floor above, and cause the fire to work in a downward direction. Portions of the burning floor fell upon the floor of the shop, and firing it, burned a large piece away, and fell into the cellar. Not suspecting or not observing this, one of the firemen, when access was first gained to the shop, fell into the cellar, but fortunately received no serious injury. There were no signs of fire on Mr. Pearce's side of the wall, but that gentleman's neighbours cleared the room of the furniture, and when the Fire Brigade's hose arrived it was carried through one of the windows of this room, and a hole being made through the wall, a powerful jet of water was poured upon the burning floor on the other side - the very seat of the fire, and as we have already said, it was extinguished in a very few minutes. The Police hose had been directed over the fanlight of Mr. Cresswell's door. So great was the heat engendered in the immediate neighbourhood of the fire that the glass of a handsome show-case in the shop, immediately beneath the room in which the fire was most destructive, was heated so that when the water touched it it flew in all direction, and is starred and flawed into very small pieces, though the plates are more than a quarter of an inch in thickness.
The damage done to the building is not extensive, but the loss to Mr. Cresswell is most serious. The furniture of the room in which the fire raged the most furiously is nearly destroyed, that which is not actually burned being damaged by the heat and smoke and the water so as to be worthless. This was specially the case with reference to some very fine and valuable pictures which were in the room. There were eight beautiful water-colour drawings, by Heath; two minatures; a water-colour drawing, by Bischoff; a charming little landscape, by Russel, a sunset scene, said to be the best picture Russel ever painted; but the gem of the collection was an oil-painting representing cherubs in the centre enclosed by a floral wreath, representing the seasons. The centre of this picture was by Rubens, and the wreath by John Breugel - known also in art history as Velvet Breugel. The frame of the picture was carved expressly for Mr. Cresswell. These are all now reduced to mere wrecks. The canvass is not burned, but the colours are blistered and melted off it, and the frae, though not actually burned, is blackened and blistered, to all appearance beyond power of restoration. Looking at the huge gap burned in the floor, where the stout timbers have been entirely burned away, and at the paint on the door of the room, which hangs in folds and shreds as if it had boiled off the wood, one can only wonder that the whole place had not burst into flames. That it had not was doubtless owing to the thickness of the carpeting which excluded the air, and was not of itself of a highly inflammable nature. Mr. Cresswell is insured in the County and the Liverpool Fire Offices, but, of course, no adequate return can be made for the loss of art treasures which he valued so highly, and which are, in a certain sense, the result of a life of careful industry. In the lobby outside the door of this room the paint is all bllistered, and some birds, whose cages were hung on a landing above it, were found sufocated. That Mr. Cresswell managed to face the heat and the deadly smoke when he made a dash to save his pictures in such an atmosphere, can only be explained by the fact that he was sustained by the excitement of the moment.
Mr. F.H.Pearce is insured in the County Fire Office, and the building, which is property of the Trustees of the Mechanics' Instituation, is insured in the Suffolk Alliance Fire Office. The police, once they were on the spot, did good service; and the firemen were, as usual, well handled by Mr. Pyman, the superintendent of the brigade, and Mr. Ratcliff, the deputy superintendent. The supply of water was also good, and the rapidity and ease with which this fire was extinguished, is another proof of the value of a constant supply of water at high pressure. It is worthy of remark that we have had no extensive fire since our water supply has been kept at high pressure.