THE HERALD FIRE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 89, 11 May 1909, Page 4

THE HERALD FIRE.

A MAGISTERIAL INQUIRY

At the Magistrate's Court yeswmay, before Mr. h. si. I'ilzlierliert, an inquiry was held c-onceiuiiig the recent flxe at the Herald office. The following jury was empanelled: —Sajuuel Teed, Ueorge D. Unite, John Buttimore, J. Avery, J. Abbott and W. Anbury.. Mr. Ambury was chosen foreman. i'ergeant Haddrell appeared for the police. Superintendent I'red. Helliinger represented the Fire Board. The Coroner stated that after reading the police report on tne tire ne had come to the conclusion that an inquiry into the Are was not necessary. Since then, however, he had been requested by the Fire Board for tne district, under section 40 of the Fire boards Act, 1008, to hold an inquiry. Hence the present proceedings. Constable Flanagan deposed that he was on-night duty in New PJymoutn on the night of April l<i. An alarm of fire was given about twenty minutes to one o'clock on'the morning of tne iTtli. About ten or twelve minutes before this he was in the vicinity of the Herald Office in Currie Street, where the fire occurred. Witness was then at the corner of Currie and Devon Streets, under Sole Bros.' verandah. He saw nothing to raise Ilia suspicions. It was a line calm night. Previous to half-past twelve he was in the locality, at a little alter half-past eleven. There was no line to be seen about the streets. Witness gop the alarm by hearing someone ehout out "Cooee! Fire! Cooee!" Went hack, and saw. the lire at the Herald office. The Fire Brigade was just arriving. To Superintendent Bellringer: Witness was on duty from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m. He was the only constable on duty, and had practically to patrol the whole of the town. Witness saw no questionable characters about the town that night. Witness was not in Courtenay Street at any time on the night ol the 16th. There were easy means of access from Courleiiay Street to the back of the Herald premises, j To the jury: The night-watchman rang the fire-bell. Witness had seen him practically all the time for the previous twenty minutes. Walter J. Penn, editor of the Taranftki Herald, stated that the premises were- the property of Mr. Henry Weston. The destroyed building was 114 feet in its extreme length and 27 feet wide. The height of the front twostoried part was about 30 feet, of the middle portion ibout 14 feet. 'Jibe front was of' wood, the side on the right-of-way was iron as far as the end of the machine room, and then the ■mall two-storied portion at the back was of'wood. The old wooden building was detached - six or seven feet from the newer brick building except for ft portico on the front, which ran about halfway up the sides of the buildings. 'ln the destroyed building there was a front door, opening on Currie Street, two sliding doors opening on the right-of-way on Goldwater's side, one mming . into the publishing room and the other into the small store at the extreme rear, and another door opening into the passage between the burnt building and the brick building. There was no window in the iron walls. Tile machine room was lit in daytime by a skylight in the centre of the building. In the back portion of the building as , a gas engine, and a paper store. Up- , stairs in this portion vas another paper store. It was in this room that the fire took place a few days before. The centre of the building, where the machine room was, was one-storied and , undivided. The destroyed building was valued at £ 1100. The insurance ( on it was £650, in the New Zealand Fire Insurance Company. The building was in good condition, having been ( kept in repair. It contained the news- ( paper printing machine, a double ( royal wharfedale jobbing printing machine, two platen printing maenmes, a , guillotine, ,gas engine, several smaller , machines,'jobbing type and paper. The J value of the machinery and stock was , £2450., Tile insurance was .€1750. The origin, of- the fire was quite a mystery ( to witness. He did not think the fire . originated through accident or careless- . ness. On the Wednesday morning be- , fore this there had been a small out- j break of fire. On that account Mr. Walter Weston had been doubly careful to have the place thoroughly clean- j ed up, so that no rubbish Should, be , left about. Strict instructions had been given to the employees to be very carefill. Mr Walter Weston was at the office on the Friday night, and before l leaving he impressed upon two or niree i of the employees to go round the build- i ing and see that everything was safe i before they left. The last employees to ] ,be on the premises that night were i thoroughly reliable and eareinl. That s ■flras why witness had formed the opin- i ' ion that the fire was not due to care- 1 lessn'esß or accident. Witness could not 1 account for Wednesday's fire, in the j upper floor of the small two-storied- j building at the back a lot of papers > were packed away tightly on a shelf t They were not loose and liable to catch easily. Tile fire on Wednesday ap-

pea/red to have originated between these papers and the lining of the wall, although the papers were pushed closely against the wall. People other thqn the members of the stall could have got into that room in the day-time without being seen. A fire in : that ,room could have smouldered for many hours before breaking out. There was nothing to make a quick blaze. Generally speaking, newspaper premises were a dangerous risk for fire insurance purposes. The' May-Otway lire alarin system was installed in the building; * This gave the alarm of the fire on the, Wednesday. The system had been put 'out of order, and had not been re- j stored. Everything possible had been, done to restore jt, but without success. Re-examined/ It was quite possible ■ for someone to have got into the buil-i----ing and set it on fire, but it was easier ; for someone already in the building to set the place on fire. So far as fie staff was concerned, witness scouted the- ide« .that any had any malice agaiiirtt the proprietor of the paper. Yems Hoskin, machinist on the stuff Of the Tar»naki Herald, deposed that hp had' charge of all the machinery. His .work lay in the building that was destroyed. Every Friday night Home of the' hands worked late in the publication of the Weekly Budget. Witness left .the -premises shortly after 10 p.m. on April 16., Before doing so witness made a tour Of th e building, in con»'e<piepct! of instructions received. Everything was safe then. About nine l>a;i:ls —four men and five hoys—had been Working in the building during the evening. Witness left Bolton and Sole 6n the premises. There might have been other boy„ there after witaoss left. In his tour of inspection witness went into eight rooms. There was one room he could not get into. This was the store-room, nearly under the staircase in the front of the building. It was locked. Two of the hands smoked at their work. Witness did not see any smoking going on during the night in question. These two smoked pipes, not cigarettes. .The hovs were not allowed to smoke. (Jenerallv the place was left' clean, all refuse paper l>eing put into a bag, On Friday nights then; was' a lor 1 at paper "trimmings," cut off the copies I at the Budget by the guillotine. These I were pushed into a heap on one si«le. dose to the wall on (ioldiwater's side of the building. This heap, if once started by fire, would burn very rapidly. The "waste" used a'wut the niachbieiv, "■hga too dirty, .was placed in a, box. rhe skyliglitis were quite sound. There had been, several small outbreaks at. parious times' in a shed outside, used' for burning rubbish in. These had been suppressed before doing much damage. | ff tile heap «f shavings olreadv referred > o had caught fire the place would have i ieen burnt. There woijld have to be a : >ig fire I7i t,!ia£ building before it wo ild lave burnt through the roof. It would lot-hnnbeen a difficult matter foranv- I got in at the back, even if ' ■% f'Mce was locked. The windows broken on !!;.■ V.Vdaes-

day had been boarded up on the inside, The boards could have been pushed in. Cias was used for working at night. Tile jets Aveiv open ones. The lights, except one, were from the ceiling. Witness made his inspection in the dark, without anv light. The only lights r.i the building then were those in the machine room. He did not light any inaMivs. Witness had never heard of any animosity among the employees against the linn.

To tlie Coroner; Witness visited the place during the lire, but could not form any opinion as to where the lire originated. After the stuff' had been cleared away in the morning lie thought it started near the staircase and at the rear. The pile of shavings was about thirty-live feet away from the staircase.

To Superintendent Bellringer: Witness had been employed at the Herald office for nineteen years. It witness' opinion, if the shavings had caught the fire would haw gone up the matchlining and broken the skylights. 'le did not think such a heap ol' shavings would hav e smouldered from half-past 10 till half-past 12. From his obtoAvations oil the following day, witness thought that the, lire had started in two places, if not more. The gas engine had a room to itself.

E. P. Sol e deposed that he was at work in the building from 8.30 p.m. to 11.20 p.m., and left with Boulton. Witness left by the side-door, and Boulton by the front. There was no smoking iu tile building that night, as far as he knew. He was not a smoker. B»forc leaving he lighted his bicycle lamp at the side-door, throwing the match into the alley-way. Vincent Boulton's evidence was that he left the building at 11.20 p.m. that night. lie had seen no smoking iu the buildings. There were paper trimmings' on the lldor. Hdid not use a match in coming out. To Superintendent Bellringer: It was easy to get in by one of the side windows at the back.

Superintendent Bellringer gave evidence that when the brigade arrived the largest body of fire was at the two ends of the central portion of the building. Probably it had been burning for about half-an-hour, speaking from his knowledge of tin- building. He thought there should lie more police on duty in New Plymouth all night. Sergeant W. H. Haddrell 'deposed that the police had received a statement from George Bowers, the night porter at the Imperial Hotel at that time, and who had since left the district. Bowers, who was a very respectable young man, had called at the police ollice frequently.! before hp left, asking when the enquiry I was to be held. Bowers said he was preparing to hose down the footpath in front of the hotel, when lie heard ' n explosion in the Herald ollice. He looked over, and saw file and smoke 1 doming from the building. Knowing that the constable and the nightwatchman had just gone down Devon street, ho called to them, and the alarm was givpn. He bad not noticed or heard any signs of fire,prior to the explosion, nor had he «een anybody about. From witness' (the sergeant's J observation, hp was of opinion that the fire had broken out at the two ends' of the nachinu room. It had, he though, started in the interior of the machine-room.and had been burning quite half-an-hour before being discovered. From the nature of the construction of the surrounding buildings, it mould be very difficult f>r any constable to see the (ire from Devon street.

To the jury: The constable and'the nightwatchman did not walk down Devon street together, but on opposite sides of the .streets, trying the doors. To .Superintendent Bellringer: Ordinarily there were two-constables on night duty in New Plymouth, hut on that night one was either sick or away on duty. Sometimes constables were away on special duty, such as taking mental cases to Porirua, and <so on.

. His Worship said that the jury had to find whether this fir t > was caused by an incendiary or by accident, or. they might find that there was' no evidence to show haw it originated. There was nothing to support th P theory of incendiarism, except that it was' possible to' gain aeeesa to the buildings at any time. It was more likely that the fire was the result of accident, especially in view of the waste paper, paper trimmings. and oil waste about the place. A match inadvertently thrown, or the butt of a lighted cigarette, would easily have started the fire. THE JURY'S VERDICT.

Tlie jury retired for about 20 minutes. and on returning announced the finding that tlifre was no evidence to show how the fire originated, and added riders: That in their opinion valuable properties in the business portion of the town should receive more careful supervision, especially where night work is' being oarried on; that there should be suffieirat police supervision in lie borough to allow o'f two constables being 011 night dutv regularly; and congratulating tin- Fire Brigade un their smartness in arriving at the scene of th e fire.