PETROL SAUSAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 58, 8 March 1913, Page 17

PETROL SAUSAGES.

• REMARKABLE STORIES OF NEW YORK'S FIRE-RAISERS. NOTORIOUS CASES. After many arrests, the results of the sensational testimony of the Incendiary Stein who openly declared that he had set fire tc 200 houses in order that hla gang mlghi collect the insurance money, the grand jnry at New York, on Monday, January 20 handed down five more indictments, lnclud ing one against Mr H. C. Freeman, an in surance broker, mentioned by Stein as i party to the crimes. The further the inquiry has gone th< more facts have been revealed concerning the crimes of a band of professional lncen diaries, called in America "fire-bugs " Th< Public Prosecutor Is satisfied that a "ring' of Insurance adjusters have had profltabl relations with the incendiaries, and that I was a simple matter to find tenants o houses or flats willing to Insure their house hold effects on the understanding that their goods were to be burned. "Izzy the Painter," a criminal serving a long term of Imprisonment for arson, lin« frankly confessed to a delight In watching the flames of fires he had started. He says that over 5,000 people asked him to start i fires for them ,in four years. The method \ has been for a new tenant of a house or flat to spend a small sum on cheap furniture, insure It for a substantial amount, engage a professional Incendiary, then with his family be absent from home when the fire occurred. Afterwards came a deal between the Insurance adjuster, the insurance policy-holder, and the Incendiary. j The report of the New York Fire ComI missioner avers that fire-raising has become ! almost a fine art, and the methods employed by Incendiaries are skilful and varied. In one case at least bladders filled with ether ■; (which Is highly Inflammable) have been I used. Another Incendiary used ten or twelve large pasteboard boxes half-filled • with oil and connected with strips of cloth soaked in oil leading to other parts of the room which was fired. Tissue paper fuses are used In some cases. A mattress containing gunpowder, to which was attached a . fuse, was used by one Incendiary. In this case all the gas jets In the room were found turned onOne particularly notorious case occurred last August, when an attempt was made tc burn a stable In which were seven horses. The coats of two of the horses were found soaked with petrol and kerosene. The present investigation shows thai i there has been an amazing Increase In th< number of fires In the business centre ol the city In the last five years. Here a i trader, finding his business unprofitable i would effect a large Insurance on his stoct , and then engage an incedniary to set fire t< ! It on a commission basis. The evil has be s come so widespreiad that certain insurance i companies are said to have refused to take . risks from a number of feather, clothing and dry goods merchants. Sausages containing petrol Instead OJ I meat have been used by incendiaries te start fires. They were hung on wires ant 1 exploded when the flames reached them I spreading the outbreak.