Phenix Gazette

DREADFUL FIRES IN EDINBURGH,

Liverpool, Nov. 24th.—On Monday Tuesday, and Wednesday week, Edinburgh was desolated by the ravages of destructive fires which broke out successively on those days. The following paragraph from an Edinburgh paper, will give some idea of the extent of the calamity which has befallen the northern capital:

"The extent of the desolation, now that the crisis is past, and that we have leisure to survey the scene of ruin, appears more frightful even than we could have imagined. Along the front of the High street there are destroyed four lands of six stories each, besides the sunk stories; from these down towards the Cowgate, by Con's-close, two wooden lands; in the Old Assembly close, four lands of six or seven stories: six smaller tenements in Borthwick's. close; four lands of six stories in the Old Fishmarket-close. Downwards, nearly as far as the Cowgate, nothing is to be seen but frightful heaps of ruin, to which all approach is rendered highly dangerous, by the walls which are still left standing in different places, but in an extremely tottering condition. Along the front of the Parliament-square, four double lands, of seven to eleven stories each, have been destroyed, great part of the walls of which have fallen; other parts are still standing, but in such a shattered condition, that they threaten destruction to the remaining houses near them: in consequence of which it was on Friday judged expedient to order their being pulled down. It is difficult to estimate the number of families that have been rendered houseless by the present calamity. But when we consider the height of some of the buildings, and the density of the population in this quarter, six or seven families being sometimes crowded together into one floor, the number cannot all short of 250; indeed we have little doubt, that, if an accurate calculation could be made, they would be found to exceed that number. Such a scene of calamity as this is seldom paralleled in the annals of domestic life."