The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-28
NEWS OF GENERAL CITY
nrouT or TENANT TO BURN
 HOUSE HE OCCUPIES.
cass of George Young Dallas Dark ~, who Fired His Home and was upheld in ths Deed
 by the Courts.
Advertiser Bureau.

lr AdVertiSer bureau, Selma, Jan. 27. That man has right in common law ana under statute to burn his own house is "a savinS tremendous but tfite," but that a man has an equally we'll establish.
 Cd privilege to burn q rented house in
 which he resides is not so well known.
 and the discharse of one oeorse Young. a
 nasro. who was said to have destroyed
 kis dwelling, leased from a white man
 in West Dallas, appears 10 the uniniti-
 atea one of the mysteries that are solu-
 Die sriy In the mental crncibies of law yers of the Philadelphia variety.
 Yet the point Is not far to seek A ,tons
 ant ts, dering his tenancy, owner of the
 house he leases. provided lt be without
 fraudulent intent, he can burn his own
 house without infringement of the law; SO that the tenant may burn his land
 lords house and leave the latter without
 redress. This fact has been established
 by she Supreme Court but its remedy has
 never been supplied by necessary iesis.
 lation.
 George Young, hero of the case in hand, lived with his family in house in West
 Dallas, which he rented from a white
 man. One night when he was alone
 Youngs Might Thoughts took on a
 lurid hue. 1t is said. and he set fire to his 0W1tttuk HU tnal " WhS uCBtf9eGu utCFiys and his vine and iig4tree were withered. Then oificers of the law laid hold upon George and q magistrate ordered that he be taken away to the County prison and there await the action of the grand jury on the charge of arson.
 Young was taken to jail but soon there- after he had In lawyer and asked the City Court or selma, Of which lion. J. W. Mabry Is Judge presiding. for a writ of habeas corpus. When the case cafns On to De tried the court ordered that
 Young be discharged. But counsel for tht prosecution appealed to the Supreme days ago the Supreme Court affirmed tht decision of the lower court and the grand | jury which returned no true bill against the prisoner ordered that he be dis charged.
 1t Ia taken as an established fact if the law. then. that man may burn his
 home, whether he owns 1t or rents It, Il
 he does it "for fun'--unless, in other
 words. the set be to obtain insurance oS
 for other fraudulent purposes. That such
 a condition is existent is notable and doubtless results from an inference by legislators that an owner or a tenant would Dc restrained by selfish interest from destroying his own property. But the Young case serves well to indicate the
 need of a special statute to cover sirailas cases.
 Incidents similar to those said to have
 surrounded the Young case are. however, few and far between and Hon. W. W. 0uarles says thai this is the first case of the kind that has come before him during his eleven years service as Solicitor Of the Fourth Judicial Circuit though he has of course dealt with many charges Of ar- son. It would seem, therefore, that if the idea Of restraining sSlf.interest be elifni-
 mated men are very much more prone to
 do acts forbidden than acts permitted by the law.