HAD YOUTH’S STRANGE FREAK.

Waikato Independent, Volume V, Issue 323, 12 January 1907, Page 5

HAD YOUTH’S STRANGE FREAK.

The Wew York police have arrested a * youth named Prank Morris, who .is accused of attempting to burn a large - block of fashionable apartment houses in West Sixty-Fifth street, While under the % influence of cigarettes made from straraonium leaves. ' Five different fires were discovered in the apartment houses, wherein four ? lives were lost, and many persons were prostrated through fright, While hun-W dreds of others were rescued from dain- 5 gerous positions with . great difficulty.; h A big conflagration was averted only by W the heroic activity of the fire depart* '■ ment. Repeated alarms coming close to-' i gether attracted a great crowd to West Sixty-Fifth street. A newsboy was watching the rescues when a breathless ■ youth approaching hurriedly cried, “ Any " dead yet ? Don’t go away. There will ? be lots of fires to-night. " . : The newsboy, noticing that the stranger’s clothes and face were grimy ■■■■'" with smoke and soot, informed the police. Two constables then beard the ' youth sneeringly declare to the by. \ standers that the, New .York .firemen were not so prompt in answering alarms ’ as the "Boston firemen. “ Wait until the next alarm, he added, “and see how slow they are! ” - When arrested the boy, who gave his i name as Morris, s pulled out a packet of ,!■ cigarettes made from stramonium leaves, l > and lighted one. It appears that he smokes dozens of them daily until completely irresponsible. . . ’ He seemed incapable of regret when 1 informed that one woman, aged seventv- - • nine, died of fright when smoke filled V her apartment, and that the majority of • the members of eight half-suffocated families were taken to the hospital. '