INCENDIARY FIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8999, 12 March 1888, Page 5

INCENDIARY FIRE.

DELIBERATE ATTEMPT IN QUEENSTREET. PREMISES FIRED IN THREE PLACES. About half-past five o'clock yesterday morning, as a lamplighter in the Gas Company's service named Antonio Silva, and a man named Joseph Rainbow, were passing down Lower Queen-street, the former saw smoke issuing from the upper windows of the premises lately vacated by the Norwich Union Insurance Company, and the Mutual Life Association of Australasia, adjoining the Wharf Hotel. The two men at once raised an alarm of "Fire," and the New Zealand Insurance Company's firebell at the Exchange speedily gave tongue. _ Constables Grey and Martin, who were in the neighbourhood, came up and forced in the door easily, while Silva turned off the gas at the meter. An examination of the place showed that it had been fired in three places—in a cupboard or pigeonhole for papers under the staircase, and upstairs the flooring of the lumber room and wall lining were on fire. Some rubbish was burning on the floor, and some almanacs of the Mutual. A space of flooring, eight feet by eight inches,was burnt through, and one of the beams was charred. The fire in the pigeon-hole had died out, after destroying the papers, for want of air. Detective Walker took possession of the half-burned papers for future investigation. The premises were unoccupied. The Fire Brigade and the Salvage Corps were early on the round, the fire being kept in check by uckets of water obtainable from the hotel and from the rear of the building on fire, till their arrival. Mr. Joseph Morcy, the custodian of the Victoria Arcade, did good service with one of Babuck's extinguishers. The premises are stated to belong to Messrs. Williamson and Martin Nolan, and are insured for £800 in the South British, As to the origin of the fire it is wrapped in obscurity, but everything shows that it was a deliberate attempt at incendiarism. It is believed that the three different fires had been lit some time before the discovery, and the gas pipe had been cut upstairs and the gas turned on to make assurance doubly sure. The back door of the premises was found to bo secure, but the front door, which has a spring lock, does not seem to have been securely locked, as, on experiment, Constablo Martin pushed it open with one hand. It is presumed that the incendiary or incendiaries effected an entrance and exit by this door. MR. SAMUEL COOMBES' STATEMENT. Mr. Samuel Coombes, licensee of the Wharf Hotel, informs us that on Friday last he was aroused between half-past two and three o'clock a.m., and on looking out of his upstairs bedroom window, which overlooks the back yards of the hotel and of the adjoining premises, he saw a man in his yard. He called out to him, asking what he was doing there, but before ho could rouse up the barman, and they could get out, the unknown man had escaped up the back hill into Swanson-street. On examining the place next morning, he found that, some bagging had been over the barbed - wire fence he had put up for security of property in the yard, ana that the man had evidently dropped over into his yard from the adjoining premises. Mr. Coombes also states that yesterday morning, between two and three o'clock, ho was aroused by hearing noises, as if of something falling on the floor, and he got up and went down the corridor to the bedrooms of his children and of the lodgers, but found all right, and returned to bed again. He concludes now that the noise he heard was that of the incendiary moving about in the upper floor next door.