INCENDIARISM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3806, 22 February 1927, Page 54

INCENDIARISM.

FOUR ATTEMPTS FRUSTRATED. LIQUOR BOND BROKEN INTO. At 5.43 a.m. on Sundav the City Fire Brigade received a call to Murray. Roberts’s seed store at the corner of Cumberland and Gordon streets, and on arrival there found that some bales of wool and sacks were on fire. The outbreak was quickly quelled, but at 7.19 another call was received to the same building, when it was found that a fire of more serious dimensions had broken out in the liquor bond situated in the northeastern end of the store. When this blaze was quelled a thorough inspection showed that fires had been . tar ted in four separate places, and the indications are that these were the work of drink-crazed thieves. The small trapdoor in the main door had been forced open, and the staples in the lock of what is termed “the birdcage,” surrounding the liquor bond, had been removed. The liquor bond is a small brick compartment heavily padlocked, but this barrier was overcome by the intruders forcing out sufficient of the bricks, to gain an entrance. Just what happened after that is a matter of theory, but it i the general belief that the thieves, after consuming a considerable quantity of the liquor in the bond, set out on a campaign of wilful damage. Papers in the clerk’s office had been set fire to, and a pot of paint had been spilled over the desk, while a number of sacks containing seed had been slashed with a knife. It is as yet impossible to estimate the extent of the damage done, but it must be considerable. The matter is in the hands of the detectives, whose theory is that whoever perpetrated the outrage broke into the store with the primary object of getting the liquor. They could not have hoped to find any money there.