ARSON KING'S CAREER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

ARSON KING'S CAREER.

NUMEROUS FIRES PLANNED.

LIVED LIFE OF LUXURY.

EXPOSURE DUE TO DRINK.

Drink, riotous living, and heavy gambling were the causes -which led to the arrest and conviction of Joseph Englestein, alais "Dandy Joe," king of the ■East End firebugs, whose astonishing career of 1 crime ended with a sentence of six years' penal servitude at the > Old Bailey. - '->/ He- lived, as he worked, on a grandiose scale. His private residence in Amherst Road, Hackney, is a' three-storeyed mansion, capped by a roomy and ornamental tower. He kept several servants; and a nurse for his infant children.At > the rear of the house is a high walled garden, tipped; with,-' glass, and above this again is a barbed wire fence, making it impossible, for "anybody -to overlook his beautiful grounds. A luxurious hammock is swung between two leafy trees. It was here that. "Dandy Joe" whiled away the sunlit hours, eating, drinking, * and deeping ;in turn, till the time arrived to begin - his nefarious .operations. - "The nature of • -Daridy Joe's' occupa-tion-was widely, known in the cabinet trade," said a neighbour- in , Amhurst "ftoad. "There are members of his gang still at large." "When planning a fire 'Joe' worked out the details with mathematical precision. He would indicate to his client ■the amount of furniture which could be surreptitowsly removed before he began operations, and having carefully taken note of the goods which had beer; inspected by the insurance officials when the policy was made out, he would draw up a plan of the show rooms, and deposit where the furniture had been the "recise number of screws, locks, and bolts which the assessors would , expect to find after the furniture had ' been destroyed by fire. • • ' ~ "By this means he made it appear that the articles in respect of which insurance money was claimed had, in fact, been destroyed, whereas, of course, they had been carefully removed before the premises were fired. 'Joe' never made mistakes in these calculations. He had worked for man} years at the cabinetmaker's - bench, and knew to a screw what was required for every kind of furniture." Enelestein was captured in conseauence of talking too loudly, under the influence of drink, when discussing a prospective fire with a client in a London restaurant. Detectives, sitting at an adjoining table, overheard every word.