It was suspected from the first that they were the act of an
incendiary, and upon a rigid examination of the household before the
Fiscal-General and the Sheriff the mischief was traced to the daughter
of the housekeeper, a young girl who was on a visit to her mother.
She had effected her purpose, which was perfectly motiveless, by
concealing combustibles in different parts of the house.
The most ludicrous conflagration that perhaps ever occurred was that
at Mr. Phillips's workshop, when the whole of his stock of instruments
for extinguishing flame were at one fell swoop destroyed. "'Tis rare
to see the engineer hoist with his own petard," says the poet; and
certainly it was a most laughable _contre-temps_ to see the
fire-engines arrive at the manufactory just in time to witness the
fire-annihilators annihilated by the fire. A similar mishap occurred
to these unfortunate implements at Paris. In juxtaposition with this
case we are tempted to put another, in which the attempt at extinction
was followed by exactly the opposite effects.
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