THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1880. THE RECENT FIRE INQUEST.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2132, 23 December 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1880. THE RECENT FIRE INQUEST.

Whilst admitting that in many cases inquiries into the origin of fires are not only advisable but of great public service, we cannot agree that they should be indiscriminately granted where there is no ground for them. The recent inquest on the fire at the old Shearer's Arms is a case in point of the waste of public time and money caused by such an inquiry being held without reason, Twelve business men were detained from their ordinary avocations for over three hours and a half, and the whole dread paraphernalia of a Coroner's Court was paraded for what ? Absolutely nothing at all. There was not the faintest shadow of a suspicion that the fire was caused by anything but pure accident, and yet all this farce was gone through. It will perhaps be asked why this was so. The question is easily answered. The insurance companies interested applied for and obtained the inquiry. But here comes the most peculiar part of the whole matter. The police, as in duty bound at all fires, made every inquiry, and found, exactly what was brought out in evidence at the inquest, that there was no shadow of a doubt as to the accidental nature of the fire. But even after this the insurance companies obtained an inquiry. If there had been good grounds for suspicion, no one would complain; but where every inquiry had been made by the police, the result of which tended to show the purely accidental nature of the fire, where was the necessity for holding the inquest, and wasting time and money? We trust that in future the Coroner will exercise a wise discretion before granting his summons for an inquestj in a case like the one under notice, in which it has previously been investigated by the police, and found to have nothing in it.