ALLEGED INCENDIARISM AT DUNEDIN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1354, 10 February 1898, Page 30

ALLEGED INCENDIARISM AT DUNEDIN.

Dunedin, February 8. An enquiry was held to-day before the Coroner (Mr Carew) into the circumstances connected with the destruction by fire of a house at Parkside, Caversham. The house was a five-roomed one, was valued at ,£2OO and had been the property of Mr T. M. Johnston, who mortgaged it to Mr K. Boulton for .£125, and the day before the fire it was sold by auction for £l7O to Mr David Swan. The house was insured by Boulton for £2OO in the Standard office. It was unoccupied at the time of the fire. Mr T. M. Johnston, in his evidence, said that at about 9.20 p.m. he found the door of his old house open, and going in, found Mrs Swan and two other ladies looking through the house. They had a conversation about the bargain Mrs Swan had secured, and they all left together at about 11.30. As he was going home he met his wife, and as she said she wanted the curtains she had left on the windows in the house, he went back with her, and he entered the house by opening the front window, and opened the door for his wife. They noticed a slight smell of smoke, and concluded that the Swans had been burn ing rubbish. They were only four or five minutes in the house, and left by the front door, and went home. Sarah Ann Johnston said she first heard of the sale of the house on the evening before the fire by seeing it in the paper. .She went to the house at about 10.30, and smelt smoke, as if rubbish were burning. She was only in the house a few minutes. On returning home she came out again to look for her husband in the Parkside Hotel, and they both visited the house to get some curtains. Mary Swan in her evidence said she had burned no rubbish. When she visited the house Johnston was the last to leave, shutting the door and giving her the key. After further evidence the jury returned the following verdict:—“ That the house was wilfully set fire to, but the evidence, in our opinion, is not strong enough to point to the person or persons who committed the act.”