ALARMS OF FIRE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2702, 5 December 1882, Page 3

ALARMS OF FIRE.

Shortly after eight o’clock last eveningthe Chester street bell rang out an alarm of fire, followed shortly afterwards by the Lichfield street station bell. The alarm to the former was communicated, from No. IS box, which is situate in Colombo street north, and to the latter by No. 16 box, at the corner of the Caversham Hotel. The consequence was that the Brigade turned out, and as a matter of course each portion of it went in a different direction. There was no fire or indication of a fire to be seen anywhere, and the Brigade, after a fruitless chase about the streets of the city, returned to their several quarters. The only explanation of the matter is that the wires communicatingwith the alarms have been in contact insome part, but at present it has not been discovered where it has occurred. It was stated that the boxes at No. 16 and 18 and at the junction of Madras and Gloucester street were bx - oken, an investigation by the police proved this to be a mistake, as they were intact. At 12.23 a.m. the Chester street bell rang out another peal in response to an alarm given from a box near the Hospital. This was quickly followed by the Lichfield streetball, and just as the brigade were about to leave that station another alarm was given from the box at the corner of Lichfield and Manchester streets. Detectives Hughes and O’Connor, with some of the brigade, were quickly at the lastmentioned box, where a man named Samuel Grindrod admitted that he had broken the glass and given the alarm having heard the fire bell, and getting no response after he broke the glass he thought the brigade were not aware of the fire, so he pulled the alarm. In the meantime the brigade returned from the Hospital with the report of no fire, but that a glass had been broken there and the alarm given evidently by someone. The man Grindrod was told by another person named Opponheim not to break the glass, but persisted in doing so. He was arrested by Detectives Hughes and O’Connor on the charge of damaging property belonging to the City Council. The person who first gave the alarm by breaking the glass at the Hospital has not yet been discovered. Two alarms of a false nature occurring in one night, seems to point to the necessity of some steps being taken to ensure a prevention of larrikinism in this direction.