“SCIENTIFIC ARSON.”

Kumara Times, Issue 1390, 16 March 1881, Page 2

“SCIENTIFIC ARSON.”

The New York Sun gives the following account of what it terms a case of “ Scientific Arson ” A large wire ring strung with pieces of dried codfish, is one of the curious relics of fires that Chief Engineer Thomas F. Nevins, of the Brooklyn Fire department, possesses. “ The story .of that relic,” he said recently, “ will tell of the most ingenious attempts at arson I have ever heard of. We had an alarm of fire one night from a clothing store of a man who had locked up and bad gone with a friend to the Theatre. The fire was under considerable headway, but we extinguished it while it was yet confined to the store. In making our search for the cause, we found the bodies of three dead cats, a broken kerosene lamp upon the floor near the counter, and this ring of wire and dried fish. There had been no fire in the store, and there was bub one explanation of the mystery of the fire’s origin. The cats were much emaciated, and the pieces of fish were partly eaten. Now what do you think we concluded 1 Why that the man, wishing to get his insurance, had invented an ingenious plan of having the cats set fire to the store, while he, accom* panied by a witness, was at the Theatre* By starving the cats for two or three days, he got them into a condition to attack any food with ardour, Then he placed a kerosene lamp close to the edge of the counter, and put this wire hoop strung with fish around the lamp. As he went away, he released the cats, and when they found the fish the only food in the place, they began to pull at it, and naturally pulled the lamp off the counter. When it struck the floor it broke, the flame met the oil and there was a fire. I never had proof enough to cause the man’s arrest, although myself convinced of his guilt, but I preserved his curious device, thinking perhaps to hear from him again in this line at some future time. I have also in mind another clothing dealer, whose method of creating a fire was to heat a stove rod hot, leave open the dampers, and then turn on all his gas jets. In the course of the night there was an explosion, and we had one dental fire where the facts to arson.