ATTEMPT TO FIRE PREMISES.

Evening Post, Issue 55, 12 April 1865, Page 2

ATTEMPT TO FIRE PREMISES.

At the Resident Magistrate's Court, Dunedin, on the 4th instant, John Riordan was charged, on remand, with attempting to set fire to certain premises in Walker street, with intend to defraud the New Zealand Insurance Company. Mr. Barton appeared for the prisoner, and Mr. Macassay from the office of Messrs. Gillies and Turton, for the Crown. Hugh Gourley, examined : On Friday afternoon, about six o'clock, I looked in at the windows of the house lately occupied by Mrs. Rowse, and saw a light in the back room. I tried the door and window, but found them fast. I then went round to Mr. Thompson's, the butcher, who lived next door, and in consequence of what I told him he looked in at the window. We attempted to force the door with our feet, but failed to open it. A boy named Wyse brought a sledge hammer, and broke open the door with it. I went in first, and Mr. Thompson followed me. I saw a candle standing upright on a piece of a newspaper, and the corners fastened up around it, so as to prerent the light from shining on the window. The candle, I believe, was fastened to the paper. I saw the constable break it off. The paper was placed on the top of the old pair of trousers now shown me. There was a bag of old rubbish lying on the floor near the fire -place. Underneath the trousers there was some broken grey paper lying. The pile was lying close to the partition, and the candle might have been four inches from the wall. I went to the police station and reported the occurrence. I returned in company with Sergeant Sutton, and when there I heard a key turn in the front door and the prisoner came in. Sergeant Sutton asked

prisoner "when he was last in the house, and he replied that he was up about two o'clock putting a bill in the window, and everything was all right then. Edward Chalmer, agent for the New Zealand Insurance Company, deposed that subsequent to the Hope street fire prisoner made a claim on him for loss of property sustained by that fire. Serjeant Sutton's evidence corroborated that of Hugh Gourlay. George Fawcett, waiter at the Cafe de Paris, deposed that he saw prisoner continuously from three to six o'clock on the day in question. Edward Watmuff said the prisoner came into the billiard room about five minutes past three o'clock, and could not have left up to a quarter past five. The Magistrate thought sufficient evidence had been adduced to warrant him in committing the prisoner to take his trial at the next Criminal Sessions of the Supreme Court.