The critic., 1891-03-23
NEW YORK FIRE BUGS.


Another Tiendisb Plot to Fire Tene-
ment Discovered.
NEW YoRR, March 23.--Following close
upon the tenement house horror at Hester
and Allen streets, in which four persons
pcrished, and the East Twenty-Dinth
street fire, which cost two more lives,
with strong suspicion that Incendiarism
was the cause of each fire, came reports to
the police yesterday of two clear and in
dubitable cases of attempted incendiarism
of "a particularly atrocious kind, a third
case almost as clear and q fourth IN which
there is good reason to believe that such
scoundrelly work was planned.
IN all the lives of iifty-elght families,
comprising probably 800 persons, were
placed in jeopardy by these attempts,
each fire having been started in tene-
ment house.
In only one case were there any arrests,
but in this the proof seems to be positive,
as policeman, by peculiar good luck,
saw the would.be fire. bngs in the very
act This latter case occurred in the five
story tenement No. 20l Catherine street.
The top floor of this building is occupied
by Michael Schrender, John Strogenis
and Andrew Maschrides, Polish Jew tall
org, who slept and worked there.
The policeman in question happened to
see the windows Of those apartments
den burst of flames, which illuminated the
interior of the room, and the policeman
saw one of the tailors with can in his
hand, the contents of which he was
emptying around the room, while the
other two Poles stood in the background.
The officer started for the apartments, and
when he reached there quickly smothered
the fire with a mattress. The three tailors
looked on without showing excitement
or anxiety, and did not offer to assist the
officer in quenching the flames. They
were arrested. They said they had upset
lamp.
Another fiendish plot to destroy life
and property was discovered in the tene-
ment 243 East One Hundred and Twenty
first street, which is occupied by over 100
people. Charles BALI, bartender smelt
smoke when he went home at 2:30 a. m.
He reused the inmates, and a search re-
vealed the fact that a heap of rubbish
under the stairs was burning. The plot
evidently was to cut off escape by the
stairs. The fire escapes are somewhat
| deficient. The inmates were Mortified to
| find that the knobs to the front floors to
| this and three adjoining tenements had
| been removed, so that the people would
have been trapped like rats.
Another case was at 212 East Sixty-frst
| street. A policeman saw smoke coming
| out of the cellar at 9 a. m. The several
| colored families in the house were aroused
| 1t was found that fire had been kindled in
coal bin and also in pile of wood in
another part of the cellar.
A fire was discovered Saturday afternoon
in the cellar of the tenement, S4S Eleventh
avenue. IL was near some oil barrels and
doubtless incendiary. A tenant located
the fire in time to save the building and
| its occupants.
The Brooklyn incendiaries are still at
work. Last night fire was found to have
been kindled under the stairway in the
basement of the tenement 920 Myrtle ave
nue., occupied by several families. II was
in store-room, which is generally kept
locked. The lock had been broken. The
people in the house were panc-stricken
but all got out safely, and the fire was eX-
tinguished without doing much damage.
Newark also has its firebugs. Late last
night fire was discovered on the second
floor of the tenement 81 Boyd street, New
ark. The flames rapidly communicated
to two adjoining tenements.
There were about dozen Polish families
in the three tenements. There were many
narrow escapes and two persons who are
missing are supposed to have perished in
the flames. The buildings were burned out.
The floor IN which in the fire was
discovered was occupied by Solomon
Epstein. His apartments, it IS said, had
been saturated with oil. The police are
making an investigation.