Trial by fire

“ The plaintiff in error claimed on the trial that there was evidence of a fire in the back cellar preceding the explosion and causing it, and that the explosion was therefore but an incident in the progress of the fire, and the company was therefore liable on the policy. ”

“ Nor, indeed, does the magistrate who has assigned this trial depart from the provisions of the Aquilian law about other damage, in cases in which nothing is at issue except the damage. And to this point the praetor ought to turn his attention.
18 42In this trial, you see the question is about violence; you see the question is about armed men; you see that the demolition of houses, the ravaging of lands, the murders of men, fire, plunder, and massacre are brought before the court. ”

“ We conclude that each individual finding must stand or fall on the basis of the evidence to support it. The trial judge found that the explosions resulted from a fire in the fertilizer which had started by some process akin to spontaneous combustion, and that the Government was negligent in failing to anticipate and take precautions against such an occurrence. ”

“ She was condemned to be burnt at the stake; and a marine, her paramour and an accomplice in the murder, was condemned to be hanged.
A gentleman lately deceased told me the circumstances minutely. I think that he had been at the trial, but I know that he was at the execution, and saw the wretched woman fixed to the stake, fire put to the faggots, and her body burnt. ”

“ But the law, justly and wisely, we must admit, presumes foresight, imputes deliberation and malice, when loss of life follows the commission of a felony, and taxes the felon not alone with the initial damage but with all damages that accrue. I leave it to your own good sense, gentlemen, whether the fire-fiend who applies the torch in the heart of a crowded city is not potentially as guilty as the Malay running amuck with brandished dagger or the anarchist hurling his bomb. ”

“ It is a doctrine resting upon reason, and in accord with the common understanding of men. Applying it to the facts found in the present case, the conclusion is inevitable, that the fire which caused the destruction of the plaintiffs' property happened or took place, not merely in consequence of, but by means of, the rebel invasion and military or usurped power. The fire occurred while the attack was in progress, and when it was about being successful. The attack, as a cause, never ceased to operate until the loss was complete. ”

“ If a new force or power has intervened, of itself sufficient to stand as the cause of the misfortune, the other must be considered as too remote. In the present case, we think there is no such new cause. The explosion undoubtedly produced or set in operation the fire which burned the plaintiff's cotton. ”

“ Appellants here are witnesses from whom information was sought as to the cause of the fire. A witness before a grand jury cannot insist, as a matter of constitutional right, on being represented by his counsel, nor can a witness before other investigatory bodies. There is no more reason to allow the presence of counsel before a Fire Marshal trying in the public interest to determine the cause of a fire. ”

“ Every person who shall willfully and maliciously burn, in the night time, the dwelling house of another, whereby the life of any person shall be destroyed, or shall in the night time willfully and maliciously set fire to any other building, owned by himself or another, by the burning whereof such dwelling house shall be burnt in the night time, whereby the life of any person shall be destroyed, shall suffer the same punishment as provided for the crime of murder in the second degree ”

“ After a long and patient hearing, the jury had the difficult duty of balancing the positive evidence of many persons, and those of respectability, who deposed positively to the prisoner’s commanding his soldiers to fire, and himself firing his piece, of which some swore that they saw the smoke and flash, and beheld a man drop at whom it was pointed, with the negative testimony of others, who, though well stationed for seeing what had passed, neither heard Porteous give orders to fire, nor saw him fire himself ”

“ This infamous test of truth is a remaining monument of that ancient and savage legislation, in which trials by fire, by boiling water, or the uncertainty of combats, were called Judgments of God; as if the links of that eternal chain, whose beginning is in the breast of the first cause of all things, could ever be disunited by the institutions of men. The only difference between torture, and trials by fire and boiling water is, that the event of the first depends on the will of the accused ”

“ The fact that the man had been caught in the act of setting fire to the forests, if the Judge allowed it to appear in the record at all, would not stand with the jury as justification, or even extenuation of the deed of murder charged. The fate of the accused must hang solely on the question of fact, whether or not his hand had fired the fatal shot. ”

“ The testimony for the prosecution has no real weight, while that for the defense is strong, indisputable evidence, that removes all doubt as to the boy's whereabouts during the two hours when the fire must have been set, if it was set at all. I therefore discharge the accused, as no evidence has been offered that would justify me in holding him;" and then turning to our hero with a friendly smile, he added: "Fred, you can go. It is clear that you are innocent of the charge made against you." ”

“ But the aim of the statute is the expeditious and expert ascertainment of the causes of fire. The Fire Marshal is not a prosecutor, though he may, like others, serve as a witness for the prosecution. In various proceedings, as for instance under some workmen's compensation laws, the presence of lawyers is deemed not conducive to the economical and thorough ascertainment of the facts. ”

“ They invariably do so, and unfortunately international trouble is never confined to the felon. Human retribution, once it begins, is as indiscriminating and uncontrollable as a prairie fire. The flames consume the wheat as well as the tares. Hell fire administered by the hand of man scorches the innocent equally with the guilty. ”

“ It is only when the causes are independent of each other that the nearest is, of course, to be charged with the disaster.” The rule of law announced in the foregoing case, by the learned justice, is clearly applicable to the present case.
If, therefore, the evidence satisfies your minds that there existed a fire in this mill, and the fire produced an explosion, the fire would be the proximate cause. ”

“ If you find in the case evidence that there was an antecedent fire, which did not amount to an explosion, but which was simply rapid combustion, which resulted in a collapse of the building, and not in an explosion, then it is conceded that the plaintiff is entitled to recover such damages as you shall find that he sustained. ”

“ It occupied me until the time came for proceeding to the inquest.
The objects of the legal inquiry were necessarily beset by peculiar complications and difficulties. Besides the investigation into the manner in which the deceased had met his death, there were serious questions to be settled relating to the cause of the fire, to the abstraction of the keys, and to the presence of a stranger in the vestry at the time when the flames broke out. Even the identification of the dead man had not yet been accomplished. ”

“ Any person who shall be present at a fire occurring in the house of another, and while present at such fire appropriates any article belonging to the proprietor of the house in which the fire occurs, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and as a punishment therefor shall be thrown into the burning fire. ”

“ But, as alone conspicuous throughout the motionless and breathless crowd the judge and criminal gazed upon each other, and as the eyes of the spectators wandered on each, a thrilling and electric impression of a powerful likeness between the doomed and the doomer, for the first time in the trial, struck upon the audience, and increased, though they scarcely knew why, the sensation of pain and dread which the prisoner's last words excited. ”

“ And that soon after this, a mob assembled before the house of the defendant, with marrow-bones and cleavers, an effigy of the said defendant, and a transparency; and, after having lighted a fire before his door, the flames of which ascended as high as the windows of the first floor, they burnt his effigy in that fire; they then broke the defendant’s windows, and acted otherwise riotously, by which the defendant was compelled to leave Hammersmith. In consideration of these facts, the affidavit went on to pray a lenient punishment from the Court. ”

“ Once more the gruesome details of four murders were presented to a jury-the gathering of the family in their home, the fire at 2 a.m., the .22 caliber bullets in the bodies of the four victims, the borrowing by the accused of a .22 rifle, the arrival of the firemen, the autopsies at the morgue. ”

“ Culprits arraigned before them, guarded by armed soldiery, without arms themselves—why, in the name of justice, drag them into Court and force them to sit through a long trial, bound with iron, hand and foot? ”

“ The General Managers were dumbfounded when they were, one after the other, put on the stand. Eighty-six witnesses were in court to testify as to the riots and fires. Assistant Chief Palmer and other members of the Fire Department were on hand to testify that when they were trying to extinguish the flames in the railroad yards they caught men in the act of cutting the hose and that these men wore the badges of deputy marshals. Other witnesses were policemen who were ready to testify that they had caught these same deputies instigating violence and acts of incendiarism. ”

“ Before the jury gave their verdict, the coroner asked the prisoner if he had any questions to ask, when, with fiendish look and sarcastic sneer, he replied, ‘Me ask any question? Are you satisfied with what you have got? Then be doing!’ The jury then, without removing from their seats, unanimously agreed to a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder.’ Shortly after the prisoner was committed and driven off to York Castle, to take his trial at the next summer assizes, amidst a dense crowd, whose suppressed indignation under the horrid exciting circumstances of this tragic scene does them great credit. ”

“ For example, a defendant might be held liable for aiding and abetting the burning of a building if he intentionally helped others break into the building at night and then, unknown to him, the others lit torches to guide them through the dark and accidentally started a fire. ”

“ The same fire that destroys them will devour the ropes around their wrists, dropping their bodies to the floor, leaving no evidence. The investigators will believe they started the fire, and so will not search further for us. ”

“ They represent, for instance, culprits hanging on the gallows—sometimes two or three in a row—with a fire kindled underneath; others attached to stakes in the midst of the flames; others, again, racing away under the lash of the executioner, &c., &c., and thus form a most realistic comment on the judicial severities recorded in the text. ”

“ It was certainly open to the plaintiff to direct the attention of the jury to the obvious natural law that any fibrous material, like cotton, when tightly compressed and piled, as was the cotton in question, if ignited by a spark, may smoulder for an uncertain period. The only proof on the subject of the discovery of the fire is that to which we have referred, giving an account of the alarm offire by Valle. The mere fact, however, that he gave an alarm of fire when he discovered it does not support the inference that the fire had not been burning for a considerable period before he knew of it. ”

“ The smouldering fire signified secret plots which were to be put into execution against him by his servants while he lay in bed. And the fact that he set fire to the bed himself, denoted that he would be able to meet any coming danger alone and without assistance. The indictment against him was foreshadowed by the fire and the flames and the smoke. Poison and assault were not to be feared. Men might indeed ask questions as to what kind of danger it could be which only arose from those about him, and fell short of poison and violence. ”

“ At common law, every man appears to have been obliged, by the custom of the realm, to keep his fire safe, so that it should not injure his neighbor, and to have been liable to an action if a fire, lighted in his own house, or upon his land, by the act of himself, or of his servants or guests, burned the house or property of his neighbor, unless its spreading to his neighbor's property was caused by a violent tempest or other inevitable accident which he could not have foreseen. ”

“ He was not burned at the stake, as is done to poor wretched criminals nowadays when they are burnt alive, and who are smothered by the smoke and flames, and reduced to ashes before they have time to feel the sharpness of the fire. ”

“ If the action of a clerk under such circumstances would be a discharge of duty to one guest it would be a discharge of duty to many guests; if to men, then to women and children, and the tragedy which might result appalls the imagination. But to one or many the duty to investigate when the existence of a fire is indicated or suspected is clear. It is to be remembered that in the case at bar there were indications of fire at 1:30 A. M., and that at 3:30 defendant in error awoke to find the halls filled with smoke. ”

“ Here we have a defendant in a case of homicide setting up the defence that the killing happened through an accident, but an accident not caused by criminal negligence, and this defence is to be tried by the congregation, which is tantamount to trial by jury. It is not left to God, under the oversight of the Church ”