The Kumara Times. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1877.

Kumara Times, Issue 213, 9 June 1877, Page 2

The Kumara Times. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1877.

The • verdict of the coroner’s jury, on the late fire, is of so startling a nature that it is worth while taking some notice of the evidence which led to it. That evidence was extremely lengthy and the small space at our command prevented ns from publishing it even in an abridged form. The notes taken at the inquest, however, now lie before us, and we can make use of them for ■ thepurpose of analysis. That there should be an ; unknown incendiary or unknown incendiaries, in a township built of such inflammable materials as this is, is an affirmation which should cause great uneasiness. The verdict on Thursday distinctly makes the affirmation, and' it is our intention to review as briefly as possible, the evidence upon which the verdict was founded. The critne of arson is a most serious' One, and one which can .only he brought home to ,an individual by ‘the most positive evidence. Had the jury been called upon to try an accused person, and had no better evidence been brought before them than was done on Thursday,, there can be no doubt that they'would have unanimously returned a verdict of not guilty. > The;vague verdict against /‘some person or persons unknown” relieved them from any responsibility as to'the consequences of their finding, and, probably,-' was to their minds the simplest, way of disposing of the mattei’. Let us consider what are the suspicious circumstances disclosed. Two of the witnesses, Messrs Finlayson and Mannix, deposed to having heard some one moving at the back of the premises at some uncertain hour ; Mannix said half an hour before he heard the cry of fire, but he also said “I don’t think I went to sleep afterwards until the fire.” The fire occurred at about a quarter past four in the morning, and our readers will be able to estimate the probability or otherwise"of a hard working man lying awake for half an hour at that time on a Sunday morning., Finlayson saw the shadow of a man. Now what was there suspicious in a man being at the back of the premises ? The man was not going very quietly, as he woke both witnesses by the noise he made. There are tents behin 1, the dwellers in which have a perfect right to go home at any hour, and so far as the evidence went, there was nothing to show that the hour when this man was seen and heard was exceptional. Supposing this man to have been the incendiary, there is uotthe'slightost allegation of motive. Mr Simmons declared that he knew no one who bore malice against him, and burning down the premises could benefit no one, except the carpenters who might bo called upon to rebuild them. The place was insured, Mr Simmons said for about half its value. Detective Prowne differed frdnV him materially in his estimate 6f the value of the premises, which |ie said .cost only U 46 for putting up (labour only). If this pointed to the fire having been caused by Mr Simmons it was counterbalanced by the further statement made by that officer that “ the wlmle building might have been burned if the owners bad not put it out.” Mr Simmons spoke of the place where the fire broke out being the most likely one to be selected by an incendiary, biio toougb it was so t>u’ the. promises in question, the premises themselves

were most unlikely to be selected by a carpenter in hopes of getting a job. The circumstances of the case were somewhat complicated by the production of sundry pieces of dry wood which had been found near the seat of the fire after it had been extinguished. These pieces were alleged to have been found where, according to one witness, some 200 buckets of water had been thrown, and they were perfectly dry. Detective Browne swore positively that they were not in the place where they were subsequently found, at the time he made an examination of the spot to see that the fire was extinguished. There were some copies of the Kumara Times, however, on the ground under where the fire was, but these were not touched by fire, a circumstance telling rather against the supposition that they had been -used by an incendiary. The copies found were of dates missing from a number found on the premises, with the exception of one which, by the way, contained a report of the Mulligan assault case, and therefore, might very probably have been left by a customer of Mr Finlayson. The evidence disclosed the fact that under the house there has always been a large quantity of shavings, and we cannot but think: .that the hypothesis of Detective Browne was the most probable* He said,;.“ Hisj possible that a spark might have fallen, from the stove. If the door of the stove was placed towards the partition, it was very likely that a spark might have fallen down. A match thrown down might have, caused it.” We certainly prefer believing in an accidental cause, to believing that any one could - be so-wicked as to wilfully set fire to a house in which some three or four persons were sound asleep.