The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-02-11 00:00:00

THE BOLTON THEATRE FIRE

HEAVY SENTENCE ON THE INCENDIARY.

At Manchester, on Tuesday, before Mr. Justice
Cave, Robert Preston was charged with having
feloniously and maliciously set fire to the Bolton
Theatre on the night of the 4th of January last. Mr.
Shee and Mr. Hardy appeared for the prosecution;
Mr. M'Keand for the prisoner. The case for the pro-
secution was that between three a.m. and four a.m.
on the 4th of January the Bolton Theatre was found
to be on fire, having been left the previous night per-
fectly secure, with the gas properly turned off. The
theatre was fitted with Grinnell's automatic
sprinklers for extinguishing fire, which would throw
water from a number of jets to a distance of 100 ft.
in nearly every part of the theatre, and also ring a
loud alarm boll as soon as fire raised the tempera-
ture to 160 degrees. The valve of the apparatus,
which required 17 revolutions of a wheel to close, was
permanently kept open by means of a strap upon the
wheel,
.which was riveted with copper nails. This
strap was all right on the night of the 3rd of January
and the apparatus was in perfect working order; but
on the fire brigade entering the theatre on the morn-
ing of the 4th, the strap was found cut and the
valve-wheel turned off, so that the apparatus would
not work and the water could not reach the
flames. A window was also found broken on the
ground floor in the limelight room by which a
man might effect an entrance to the building.
Mr. Elliston the lessee's office on the second floor
was found broken open with a pick-axe and brace
—part of the properties of the theatre—and a
cheque for £4 4s. and 4s. in stamps had been stolen.
The prisoner had formerly been employed as a scene-
shifter by Mr. Elliston, but had been dismissed by
him about 12 months before for drunkenness. During
those 12 months he had been employed as a bill-
poster; but in December had been employed for a
month by a Mr. Worsick at the theatre in Wigan.
Mr. Worsick, previous to engaging the prisoner, asked
him why he had left the Bolton Theatre. The prisoner
stated that "Mr. Elliston had sacked him for
nothing." On the 11th of December last the prisoner
took lodgings at the house of a Mrs. Haigh, at Bury,
about five miles from Bolton. He slept there each
night until the 2rid of January; but on that day,
without informing Mrs. Haigh, he left Bury and took
a bedroom at the house of a Mrs. Hayes, in Bolton.
On the 2nd of January an accident happened at the
switch-back railway, of which Mr. Elliston was
proprietor. Several people were injured, and
the result was that it was a great loss to Mr.
Elliston. On the evening of the 3rd a girl named
Cunliffe met the prisoner, and upon her saying that
the switch-back accident was a bad job, the prisoner
said, "Oh, that's nothing; there will be something
worse than that before long." The fire was discovered
by a consta.ble named Walsh about 4.25 a.m. on tile
4th, and he and an inspector remained near the firsr
until it was burnt out. The prisoner was seen in the
neighbourhood of the fire; but he never did anything
towards putting it out. Subsequently the prisoner
met the girl Cunliffe again and said, "It is a good
job the theatre was burnt down. I am sorry for th,
pros.' I could put my hand in a minute on
man who did it." A verdict of guilty was return(
and the prisoner was sentenced to 12 years'
servitude.

ho
he
led,
pena

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT
_ BOUNDARIES COMMISSION.

The Central News has received the following from a
high official source : " The Local Government
Boundaries Commission has now almost completed
the provisional schemes for the different counties,
unions, and boroughs with which it has had to de*.
These schemes will shortly be published, and local
inquiries will be held in the places affected, at which
objections will be heard; after which the Com-
missioners will make their final report to Parliament.
The idea which has obtained currency that it is the
intention of the Commission to recast the counties
on hard and fast lines, following the union
boundaries, and that this idea has been
urged, and successfully urged, on the Commission
by Lord Edmond Pitzmaurice, supported by Mr.
Hibhert, and that they were further successful in
making a convert of Lord Basing, is, it is stated, not
only entirely incorrect but is founded on an evident
misconception both of the duty imposed on the Com-
missions by the Boundary Act and of the procedure
they have adopted. As stated in the letter of Sir
Henry Selwin-Ibbetson, published on Saturday, every
case has been examined on its merits; with the result
that in some cases the Union boundaries will be
altered, whilst in others the county boundaries will be
adjusted to suit modern requirements. Withreference
to the opinion of particular Commissioners it may be
pointed out that the Boundary Bill which Lord
E. Fitzmaurice used to introduce into the House of Com-
mons, and which was backed by men of such different
political complexion as Mr. Pell, Mr. Clare Read, Mr.
James Howard, and Mr. Albert Gray, was in no sense
a measure to recast the county boundaries on the
lines of the Unions, but was framed to make what-,
ever alterations, either in the Union or the county
area, which might after local inquiry be found
necessary. In his essay on County Government, in
the last volume published by the Cobden Club, Lord
Edmond also points out that the difficulties created
by the overlapping unions might in many cases be
solved by divisions into two separate unions, and in
making the parishes contained in the portion having
no workhouse, and all situated in one county,
send their indoor poor at a fixed rate of payment to
the workhouse of the union situated in the other
county, and forming the main body of the
old union. The stories about differences of
opinion between the Commissioners are equally
unfounded, and Lord Brownlow is confident
that the report will be unanimous. In regard to the
county boundaries it is now known that even the
magistrates in quarter sessions have in almost every
county in England and Wales themselves advised
some alterations of the county area, but at the meet-
ings which are now beginning to be held by the
smaller ratepayers in the places affected, a strong
feeling has in several instances shown itself that the
magistrates and landowners have notbeen sufficiently
alive to the needs of the classes below them who
object to seeing the poor made to travel longer dis-
tances, and to having to leave centres of administra-
tion in their unions, to which they have long been
accustomed, out of regard to the feelings of the
county justices, not to mention the disturbance
of the liabilities and of the well known rating
areas of the parish and the union whish

_
are now the . limits of almost every matter

of rural administration except the police. Pro-
bably no more difficult task has ever been placed on
the back of a Commission than that of adjusting all
these conflicting interests and contradictory senti-
ments. Nevertheless the Commissioners express
themselves that their report, when finally settled, will
prove acceptable owing to the careful manner in
which the public opinion of the localities concerned
will have been ascertained. It is understood that
one method which the Commissioners have adopted
for ascertaining public opinion has been to obtain
every item of information which appears in the pro-
vincial papers on the subject, so tnat the smallest
ratepayer who writes a letter to his local paper has
his voice heard in Northumberland-avenue, where the
Commission sits."