him--if it is ever a misfortune to a scoundrel to be detected--it was put out at a very ear]y stage; and the firemen, whilst in the act of extinguishing it discovered this infernal machine. The order to make it was traced to the delinquent; a female servant, irritated at the idea of his having left her in the house to be burned to death, gave evidence against him; he was tried and convicted, and is now expiating his crime at Norfolk Island. Plans for rebuilding this villain's house, and estimates of the expense, were found afterwards among his papers. The class "Doubtful" includes all those cases in which the offices have no moral doubt that the fire has been wilful, but are not in possession of legal evidence sufficient to substantiate a charge against the offender. In most of these instances, however, the insured has _his reasons_ for taking a much smaller sum than he originally demanded. Lastly, we have the "Unknown," to which 1323 cases are put down, one of the largest numbers in the entire list, though decreasing year by year. Even of these a certain percentage are supposed to be wilful. There is no denying that the crime of arson owes its origin entirely to the introduction of fire insurance; and there can be as little doubt that of late years it has been very much increased by the pernicious competition for business among the younger offices, which leads them to deal too leniently with their customers; or, in other words, to pay the money, _and ask no questions_. It is calculated that _one fire in seven which occur among the small class of shopkeepers in London is an incendiary fire_. Mr. Braidwood, whose experience is larger than that of any other person, tells us that the greatest ingenuity is sometimes exercised to deceive the officers of the insurance company as to the value of the insured stock. In one instance, when the Brigade had succeeded in extinguishing the fire, he discovered a string stretched across one of the rooms in the basement of the house, on which ringlets of shavings dipped in turpentine were tied at regular intervals. 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.