INCENDIARISM SUSPECTED

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 251, 22 October 1919, Page 8

INCENDIARISM SUSPECTED

RECENT FIRES IN ATJCKIAm, TRACKS OF TILEUSE OF OIL. Following on a series of incipient fl_ and small outbreaks in business prenjin the City during the past six weS there is an uneasy feeling among buki' ness people that an incendiarist i» l work in Auckland. An outbreak of fir in an office in the Hobson Buildings (no. pulled* down) last month, was by an incipient fire in Sextie's boot slum in Shortland Street, and then came a fl, ■in D. and A. Campbell's boot shop j! Vulcan Lane, very considerable damns, being done to the stock. Again on Fri day night a fire was discovered in th* incipient stage in B. .1. Kemp's tailoring establishment at the corner of Queen and Swanson Streets. I n all these ca«i the fire has occurred in unlikely spott but what has caused special apprehension' is the fact that at two of these placet there have been found traces of incendl. arism. Such traces were first noticed in the office of the Hobson Buildings, but they were more pronounced in the outbreak at Kemp's premises. There the fire was found in a heap of tailor's waste cuttings in a cupboard beneath a stairway, and after the fire had been quelled those interested came across in. 1 dications that a quantity of kerosene or oil of some kind, had been spilled ot poured on the waste that had been found afire. Whether or not the fire was the work of a pyromaniac. or of some person with a distinctly sinister motive, is i question that is being made the subject of investigation by people who are concerned with the prevention of fires.