The greatest sympathy will be fat by all lovers of animals, and the riding fraternity in particular, for Mr. H. Tiefenbacher, a thorough sportsman and a man with an immense love for ponies and dogs, three of whose ponies have come by a horrible death in circumstances which seem to point to it being the work of an incendiary.
Some little distance from his house in Avenue Haig, Mr. Tiefenbacher had a small range of bamboo-Wuilt, stabling, which kept four ponies. Between one and two o'clock on Wednesday morning, Mr, Tiefenbacher was aroused by a police whistle and, Jumping out of bed, he saw the whole of his stables in flames. Barefooted, he rushed out of the house, Dut the flames were so fierce that he only was able to release The Pere-vine, who was badly burned and who immediately dashed away and buried himself in a creek. The boys quarters are close to the stables, but there was not a vestige of wind and these premises were not involved, whilst the stables naturally soon burned out.
Mr, Tiefenbacher noticed when he first got down that the stables, which were in the shape of an "L," were burning at all the corners and in the middle of one side, and when able to make closer investigation, other remarkable facts were disclosed, His first thought of course, wis for 'The Peregrine, who was found to be in such a shocking condition that his owner immediately telephoned to Dr. J, Edgar, who promptly came down and put' the poor animal out of its misery then it was found that old pensioner, who was taken off work 10 years ago, was roaming about the grounds,' with no worse hurt than a few minor singes, and outside the door of his stall was a halter—the only thing removed from it was not Mr. Tiefenbacher or' any-cone else who was on the scene after the fire was discovered. Two other ponies were burned to death in their The police now are anxious to find mafoo discharged the day before. He had been in Mr. Tiefenbacher's employ for 16 years, but his conduct of late had been such that he could not be retained. The veteran pony had been his special charge.
The Peregrine was one of the finest hunters in the Settlement. Honest, fast, clever and a stay ideal mount for a pape his owner had ridden him unbeaten through the season, recently refusing an offer of well on to Tls. 1,000 for him. A second casualty was a denutiful cream half-bred mare, for, which only a few days ago Mr. ieinhacher paid Tls. 2,000 on an orde' for a friend in Hongkong. The third wae a griffin bought for Tls. 500, 'A remarkable and melancholy ewineidence attaches to the incident, Av. Meyerink, the founder of "Mr. Tiefenbacher's firm, who will be remembered by all old-time sports. mien, was very superstitious with regard to the camera and resolutely refused to allow any of his ponies to be photographed, in the belief that to do so meant that they would die very shortly afterwards. Though Tapghing at this superstition, Mr. Tiefenbacher never had anything more than amateur snapshots taken of his ponies. A day before the fire, however, he thought he would like a photograph of the mare, so he call-in a photographer and then had his animals photographed. After that, the tragedy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.