The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-05-07
who had not nerve enough to look at the
TWO elDDY GIRLS OF JERSEY.
They Say They Are Firebugs of the Worst
Sort, but Not Everyone Believes Them.

They Say They Are Firebugs of the Worst
Sort, but Not Everyone Believes Them.
Either monumental, Munchausenish liars
or female fiends-it is doubtful which of
these terms can be applied to the sisters, Hen
rietta and Emma Day, now in Jail in Sum-
NIT, n. j., for arson. These girls not only
confessed that they caused the recent fire in
Summit by which the lives of eighteen fami-
lies were endangered, but that they also COM
mitted the incendiarism at Plainfeld, N. j.,
for which a boy named William Van Ness is
now serving ten year sentence. The girls
have been employed as servants in Summit
for about two months, and nobody suspected
them OF having caused the fires until chance
remark led an officer to suspect that they
knew something at least about the matter.
He took them to his office, and Henrietta
made the following statement, which was
taken down in writing:
my name is Henrietta Frances Day. l
am IS years of age On the evening of
March % my sister Emma T. Day and my
self entered the apartments of Susan Camp
bell, in the postofiice block, Union avenue.
We found a baby asleep and snoring. We
opened a closet door and found a bundle of
carpet rags therein. Emma poured kerosene
ONcI uCh Ola ullNA
succeeded in starting blaze. We then shut
the closet door, left the baby in bed asleep
and went to the room of our sister Mrs.
Henry ArdelD, in the same building, and
waited. When we heard the fire alarm we
ran out into the street with the crowd We
also fired brakes laundry in Plaintield, for
which William Van Ness is serving term in
state prison"
This statement was corroborated in every
particular by Henrietta's sister Emma, who
| added that they had also attempted to burn
large building known as Temperance hall,
but desisted from fear of detection.
THE GIRLS DESCRIBED.
Henrietta Day is 10 years old, and is re-
markably pretty in face and figure Her
sister Emma is 10, and not so good looking,
but is nevertheless very comely. Henrietta
is endowed by nature with fund of exuber-
ant animal spirits, as picturesque as the
| quick n devilishness of a Texas yearling. She
says that she simply dotes on a good sized,
| healthy blaze, and that's the reason she
started the fires, and if you don't like it
well. you know what you can do. She gives
the inference that she is tremendously fond
of the color red. and in the lack of q good
| pot of carmine paint she wanted next best,
and took fire in her'n. She makes the most
amazing statements against herself with as
much unquenchable glee and ingenious short
sightedness as though she were singing an
improvised lullaby to doll, and thinks the
surprise of her listeners prodigiOusly funny.
Naive little Henrietta.
When the girls We're arrested Henrietta
made frantic effort to escape probably not
! because she wanted to get away, but because
she yearned for little more fun. She ran
nearly a mile across lots and fields, and didn't
care a cent if she did reveal her neat hosiery
in climbing over fences. She was finally
caught and taken to the Jail. She founfa
big stone inside the jail, and with this she
banged on the door, made a frightful noise
and shrieked at the top of her lungs. She