Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1883.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1269, 7 February 1883, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1883.

The dread Fire Fiend appears to be again amongst us, and with his ruth leu hand seems to be determined to devastate our town. Fortunately four attempt! have now been frustrated, but as it is impossible to cope with an unseen or unknown enemy, we are, although sorry to admit it, in a great measure helpless. There is to our mind only one way of meeting the Are mania strickened scoundrel, and that is, let there be a Vigilance Committee formed, each of whom are known good men and true, and who each and all will take a share of semi-amateur detectire work in order to discover the miscreant. That such a wretch is amongst us is a disgrace to us, and that he cannot be discovered is a disgrace to the intelligence of the police. Ta the first days of the great rush to California the measure we have suggested was adopted and the result proved clearly that when the authorities were powerless to protect the people the people had to protect themselves, and that crimes of lesser moment than fire-raising were speedily punished in such a manner that the culprit could not possibly offend again. We do not set ourselves up as an admirer of the decisions given by Judge Lynch on sll occasions, but would rather advocate that when detected the culprit should be handed over to a Court of Justice, although at the same time we must admit that had the incendiary last evening, been caught we would have had little compunction in assisting to elevate him by the aid of a stout rope carefully adjusted around his neck. The populace are constantly told that it is wrong to take the law into their own hands. This may be the law as a Magistrate lays it down, but after all “ the people are the people," whose representatives make laws by which their servants, either Magistrates, Commissioners, Inspectors, or any ethers of minor grade in the Police Department, have to be guided, and should they fail to do that for which they are paid, then let them be put aside as incompetent servants. The public have a right to know who is the fire fiend, and the police, as their servants should supply the information.