The Hawaiian gazette., 1907-09-03
tFrom Saturdays Advertiser.)

brought out at the second session of
the fire inquest held to look into the
cause of the recent government kero-
sene warehouse blaze, which convened
again yesterday afternoon. The evil
dence showed some peculiar things in
relation to the receipt book and the
orders of the Standard Oil Company,
one witness stating that in his opin-
ion the orders of the company had
been partly taken away by whoever
started the fire and that the others,
the ones left behind at that time, had
been tampered with. At the time they
are supposed to have been tampered
with. in the opinion of the witness,
these orders were in the possession of
Lionel R. A. Hart, clerk in the
STANDARD Oil office.
In aditidon to this, the same wit
mess, c. B. Reynolds, the government
caretaker at the warehouse, stated that
there was a great discrepancy between
the amount of oil delivered by him on
orders originally received since the fire
and up to the date when Hart got
possession of the orders and the
amount of oil called for by the orders
of those dates returned to him as the
same originals by Hart. The whole
matter of the shortage in the amount
of oil in the warehouse, according to
the drift of the evidence taken yes
terday, seems to be connected with the
disappearance of the Standard Oil
oil delivery orders.
Some preliminary evidence in regard
TO the putting out of the fire, the dis
-covery of the blaze, the sending in of
The alarm and the condition of things
as found by the firemen was taken
yesterday, among the witnesses being
Assistant Chief Deering of the fire de-
partment, r. Kinney and Raymond
Duvauchelle, the latter two having
been the first men at the fire.
The evidence given by Reynolds was,
in brief, as follows:
The upper room of the warehouse,
where the books and papers were kept,
was in no way burglar proof. Here
the powder book and the Standard Oil
storage book were left on Saturday,
the storage book beneath the powder
book on the desk. The original orders
from the Standard Oil office were left
in a drawer on Saturday night, these
orders having been in a separate bum
die to the other orders on file. On
Monday morning, after the fire, he
founS that the storage book had dis
appeared, although the one lying on
top of it on the table had been only
partially burned. The baize cover of
ho I,a
left the two books, had not burned,
showing that the book underneath
should have been little damaged by the
fire. All the original orders for oil of
the Standard people for the month of
July and of August up to the time of
the fire had gone, although all the
other orders in the drawer We're un-
harmed by the fire and only slightly
-discolored by the water.
These Standard Oil orders left were
Tor May and June. On the morning
OF the 23rd these orders were examined
by G. H. Mayer, the Standard Oil
manager, and his attorney, Frank
Thompson. That afternoon Hart ask
ed to be allowed to take away the
orders to compare them with his book.
use the stub book for a comparison
and was told that no stubs were kept.
He had thought this peculiar but, as
the orders in their incomplete state
were of no use TO him as a record,
he allowed Hart to take them. They
were counted and a receipt given for
them. They were later returned, re
counted. and as the number tailed
the receipt was given back to Hart.
After I got the order back from
Mr.. Hart examined them and am
satisfied that some of the ones return
ed were not among those he took
away" said the witness. "They were
100 new and too crisp to have passed
through the fire and water"
Reynolds then picked out four of the
orders which he thought had been sub
stituted for others. These were num-
bers 52s, 524, 525 and 522. The first
three had been written together, two
being carbon copies of the other.
Some of the orders given to Hart
We're for oil delivered after the date
OF the fire, from the nineteenth to the
twenty-second, inclusive. A record of
the amount of oil sent out on order
mad been kept on a slip of paper, and
a comparison of the orders returned,
-purporting to be the same as those
upon which the oil had been deliver
ed. with the record showed a great
discrepancy. On the twentieth the
record shows that orders for $50 cases
had been received; the returned orders
only amounted to 420 cases. On the
Twenty-first the orders called for only
three hundred cases, while the record
showed that as a matter of fact the
original orders had been for 45O cases.
Reynolds stated that he delivered no
oil without an order from someone
having oil stored TO his credit in the
warehouse.
Would you deliver an order to Hen
ry May & Co. on their firm order
without having an order first from the
Standard Oil Company?" asked E. S.
Berry. one of the jurymen.
Most emphatically not" answered
Reynolds.
Didn't you deliver to Henry May |
& Co. sixty cases of Standard Oil oil |
on the 26th of this month on an order |
made out by myself. when we had no |
order for it from the Standard Oil |
Company and not a case in here to |
our credit?" persisted Berry.
Did I?'' answered the witness.
You certainly did," said Berry, |
r'and we haven't paid the Standard Oil |