MYSTERY FIRES.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1923, Page 4

MYSTERY FIRES.

SOLVED BY SCOTLAND YARD. All London was amazed at the sensational disclosures that have accompanied the trial ior conspiracy and arson of James Siolernnui, Joseph Engelstein, and Julius Brust, who for a week occupied the dock at the Old Bailey. For three years the London Eire Brigade and the Salvage Corps have been perturbed by a long series ni fires which occurred with unfailing regularity. week after week, at the premises of foreign .Jew's in East End. The circumstance.- of these outbreak-, were such that, although the authorities felt certain lliey were intentional).' caused there was no evidence to prove this was so. in case after case official statements disclosed that the came of the fires was unknown.

Insurance companies were no lea worried. Claims were made and pair but with an ill-grace, and in man cases for hundreds of pounds less tha the sums demanded. Insurance pit miums on premises similar in type t buildings already destroyed were rai. ed by as much as two guineas per cell but to no avail. hires with “ui known ” causes continued at the iat of two a week. '■ RESPECTABLE ” FIREBUGS. When Detective-inspector Kirehue first, began as a result of the inveslijj ntions in the slums ol the East Em to suspect that Knglestein and Bins knew more than most people did aboil the origin of the mysterious fires, eve he accustomed to the criminal world a he was, could hardly believe i lint h was oil the right scent. Engelstein and Biu-t. were, to a appearances, highly respectable men i a substantial way of business. En gelstciu was managing director ol til Cygnet Cabinet Company in Columbi Rond, Shoreditch; Brust was tbeowne of ji similar large factory in Tudn Lane, of ihe same district. Both liv ed in affluent, though unostentatious comfort in large suburban bouses sum way removed from their places oi bus! ness. Both men w ere devoted to lllei families and apparently led normal, ro speetable, and industrial lives. But when, in spite of Ins precoil reived ideas of their honesty, Mr Kir chner began to delve a little into tin private lives of these two gentlemen in older that he might disprove or sub slantiate certain wlii.-pers lie bat beard, be became less and less coiivin red that they were as respectable athey seemed.

Engelstein, be discovered, bail bail two tires at bis place of business, each of which bad been "disastrous" and followed by heavy compensation. lie bad also been twice unlucky enough In have bail burglars twice visit bis home in two years, on each occasion getting away with a very considerable amount of fully protected valuables. Brust also recently suffered from a very heave fire in bis factory ; and lurlluT investigations showed that it bad not been his first one. A TRAVELLER IN ARSON. A i ter a great, deal of difficult and careful work, tor which he wa- niterwards congra alia led Sir Erin, si Wild. K, . v ,,h, ~! lbs u lev B. - ten, mc K.ivclinei- managed to come into touch, in a disreputable hotel in the East End. with a man who iurned out to be no less than a "traveller’' employed by Engelstein in increase bis custom.

Detective Kirchner posed ;i "'(ml manufacturer fnim the North of Fng- ( lain I, ami complained tiuit trade was had. Tic “traveller” suggested a fire. When the detective demurred, saying it was too risky, the traveller said that his principal ( Fngolslein) would guarantee to arrange either a lire or a burglary, without risk, for L’oll down or for a certain percentage of the protits. liiit try as he would, Detective Kirch.ner could not get the matter lurtiier than this, lie know the men lie wanted now, hut ho found it impossible to pin them down. Fires still continued in the Fast Fnd with their causes “unknown/’ ancl still it was imposMlile for Knciolstoin or l»rust to he implicated on sullieieiil evidence to convince a jury. THE FINAL ACT. lhii the ineviiahle slip was hound to occur, and there was not now loll" to wait. On May m a sudden and disasi rolls lire occurred in the premises of Messrs Stolerman Tiros., of Columbia road. .Stolernian, an associate of Fngelsloin and llrust . had already come under suspicion, ami as the Sun Insurance Company, with whom his premises had heon insured, had already indicated that after the expiry of his present policy the following month they would refuse j to renew it, the circumstances of the outbreak were especially open to ipiest ion. The lire, whicli began. at 8 o’clock in the evening with a loud explosion, followed by sheets of timin', was immediately reported to the brigade nearby, who arrived in record time : soon enough, in fact, to put out the fire before the building had been completely destroyed, and to find in the basement the remains of a zinc-lined box that had apparently contained petrol, and, by a curious stroke of luck, several petrolsoaked shavings that had not beoeme ignited. lint even before the brigade had arrived passers-by had seen, immediately following the first explosion, three “burning men” rushing from the building, their clothes alight, and disappearing. Where they managed to got nobody knows. Tint the curious fact that Engelstein, llrust, and Stolernian (who were afterwards positively identified by various witnseses) were all suffering from burns on the following morning, when called upon by Defective Kirch- , iter, supplied the final link in a chain of evidence that might still, but fi r j the unlucky and premature spreading | of petrol vapor on a warm evening, I have remained incomplete.