window-blind followed; and immediately afterwards the curtains of five
rooms broke out one after another into a flame, even the towels
hanging up in the kitchen were burnt. The next day a bed took fire,
and it being thought advisable to carry the bed-linen into the
coach-house for safety, it caught fire three or four times during the
process of removal. In a few days the phenomenon was renewed. The
furniture, books, and every thing else of an inflammable nature, were,
with much labor, taken from the mansion, and again some body-linen
burst into a flame on the way. Even after these precautions had been
taken, and persons had been set to watch in every part of the house,
the mysterious fires continued to haunt it until the 22d of February,
1849. 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. A tradesman was about
to light his gas, when, finding the cock stiff, he took a candle to
see what was the matter; whilst attempting to turn it the screw came