Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-03-17

set FIRE to the house. Resuming his natural
manner. He believed that, if the family had
been sleeping upstairs, or had been wakened
five minutes later, the whole of the family
would have persisted in the flames. The litiga-
ton about the property had kept him in trouble
right along. but he could not say if that had
anything to do with the fire.
JOSEPH LICK, JR.,
was found by the reporter at st. Josephs hos
pltal, soundly sleeping in a scrupulously clean
bed IN light airy room. The pallor of the
previous night, arising from loss of blood and
excitement, had been succeeded by healthy
flush, and everything betokened the best Of
care and promised speedy convalescence.
HON. WIN. H. MEAD,
the attorney for Lick in his litigation for the
property, was next visited. MIR. Mead sub
rights to the property, through the
deed of his wife, they were
further based upon the fact of the improve
ments he had made thereon, which would have
to be paid before Theodore Hayes could, under
any circumstances, attain possession. It.
therefore, became an important factor
in the dispute to remove those improvements.
Two jury trials had occurred to test Lick'a
title, each one of which had been marked by
curious circumstances. Immediately before
the first trial, Lick's house was burned just
previous to the second trial which was accord
up sworn to by convict in the Saltwater peni-
Tertiary, which purported to add facts tending
to show that Lick was the murderer of his own
wife. Yesterday, again, a motion was to be
heard In the district court relative to the same
matter, and the house is again burned down
over Lick's head. The effect of the destruc-
ton of the house is transparent as that would
entirely remove the improvement offset which
Lick could always claim, beside the fact of his
possessing the deed from his wife. The
litigation has been pursued with bulldog
pertinacity, and death-like grip. 1t has been
carried to the United States courts on the plea
that Lick is not naturalized and the same
game is to be re-enacted in those tribunals on
the precisely similar grounds upon which
suit was brought in the local courts
he considered that his client had been
made the unfortunate object of bitter
persecution. Concluding, Mr.. Mead payed
high tribute to the worthiness of
Joseph Lick, Jr., who is member of the form
ers Sunday school class.
The GLoE reporter has thus "a plain I'M
vanished tale delivered, from which the pub
lie may draw its own differences as to
the origin of yesterdays fire, which SO nearly
proved fatal. Was it incendiary, or was it not ?
If it was, could Lick have applied the torch,
and have been so utterly oblivious of his own
and his children's lives as to have neglected all
avenues of escape from miserable death? On
the other hand it would seem as if it would
be to the interest of other parties that the
building should be destroyed, and,
better still, If at the same time two of the main
witnesses to foul crime should be prema-
turely cut off, and thus open penitentiary
gates at no distant day, by means of q par
don or new trial Strangely corroborative
of the latter theory is the fact that these fires
come in just in the nick of time to largely
influence pending litigation.