On extending his
investigations he ascertained that a vast pile of what he thought were
pounds of moist sugar, consisted of parcels of brown paper, and that
the loaves of white sugar were made of plaster of Paris. Ten to one
but the "artful dodge" which some scoundrel flatters himself is
peculiarly his own, has been put in practice by hundreds of others
before him. For this reason, fires that are wilful generally betray
themselves to the practiced eye of the Brigade. When an event of the
kind is "going to happen" at home, a common circumstance is to find
that the fond parent has treated the whole of his family to the
theatre.
There is another class of incendiary fires which arise from a species
of monomania in boys and girls. Not many years ago, the men of the
Brigade were occupied for hours in putting out no less than half a
dozen fires which broke out one after another in a house in West
Smithfield, and it was at last discovered that they were occasioned by
a youth who went about with lucifers and slily ignited every thing
that would burn.
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