The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1882. THE LATE INCENDIARISM.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 652, 13 October 1882, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1882. THE LATE INCENDIARISM.

in, after a oriel" interval of rest, has incendiary been at his work of •oying hoiels. In this case, unlike )thcrs, liotico was given of the intenbut the notice was soon followed -! act of destruction itself. It is inly a terrible thing to think that generally peaceable and law-loving ct like this L'eiiinsala, there should rie person or persons who have not millest hesitation in risking the ,;i! properties of others to attain his ■ir ends. It is of cjurse needless to ant that no human being possessrdinnry sense but must be aware i course of viohnce like this is to ttil to secure its end, and or later to b ing destru.'tiin on r'u'ntad projector ; auJ this is so ident that we are certain oi our 1 eonvic.ion, th it it is the work of me who is insane on this parii.-u----)j(!ct, at any rat.. 1 . L'jtldtoa Tunes takes up the i ■■; (ij w.ii'o <") t be In If of tho ad-

this absurd, nnd agree with that paper that it is the most unlikely thing that any temperance advocate, however extreme in his views, would be guilty of such a diabolical crime.

It is certainly the duty of all vigh!mimled men to give every possible aid to the police, nnd any trifling circumstance that might lead to the. discovery of a clue should be imparted to theai without delay. It was on* firm belief before, that the other fire at Lii tie Akaloawas pun-ly acei dental, and nothing to do with tin , Akaroa incendiarism, but Uiis last event setuns to show it was no accident, but the result of deep design. At the same time we believe it improbable that all the tires were the work of one individual, though, of course, such a thing is possible. Wo rather .fancy that the idea of burning down the hotels in one place was conjured into the brain of s -me partially deranged person by hearing that such a thing had been done elsewhere.

In the last enquiry the sole object of the police seems to have been to trace the. crime to self-interest. How could so and so be affected ? was the cry. Does such a person benefit? After weeks of labor in tiiis direction, those long and tedious enquires wore held, at which not a single startling fact was elicited, except perhaps that there are some calm individuals who tnktf half an hour to put on their boots, before warning their neighbors they arc in danger of death from fire.

The anonymous letters, however, point to a totally distinct idea. There seems to be no pecuniary interest, no malice, but simply an insane idea that drunkenness and its attendant evils can nil be stopped by burning down hotels. As we said before, the idea is so absurd that no reasonable parson could enterMin it, so that it is probably the work of some madman.