The proprietor and the manager of a pork shop, No. 66 Chefoo Road, were charged with having been concerned together in wilfully setting fire to the said premises at 8.30 p.m. on the 11th instant, with intent to obtain tha insurance money thereon, and thereby endangering life and property.
Detective-Inspector McDowell that on Sunday night fire broke out in the lower portion of the shop No. 66 Chefoo Road, bat was discovered and extinguished by the neighbours and native policeman, The fire was found to have broken oat amongst a quantity
be very much annoyed that the fire straw. The defendants seemed to had been extinguished by the neigh-boars, On the night of the 11th instant another fire broke out in one of the three upper rooms of the shop. There were three rooms upstairs, two of which were occupied by different fami-hea and the third by the defendants. Although the fire broke out in the room occupied by the defendants, the alarm was first given by people in the street. Six or seven hooses were destroyed by the fire, bat the lower portion of defendants' shop and its contents were saved. The contents of the shop consisting of ham and eggs, were insured for Tls. 700. Witness and eighty-four small Chinese hams, five or six flitches of bacon and about forty eggs. The value of the hams was about one tael each, and the total value of the contents was Tls. 120 at the fontaine. The neighbours stated that defendants' bu: s hud been in a bad way for some time.
Corroborative evidence was given by several of the defendants' neighbours and by native P.C. 321, after which the Court decided to inspect the scene of the fire that afternoon.
The defendants were remanded in custody until Tuesday morning next.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.