How Did It Start?

THERE ISN'T ANY indication that a satisfactory explanation of the Dartmouth Hall fire can be given. When small burned-out fires of undoubted incendiary origin were found in the south end of Dartmouth and also in one room in McNutt Hall, the arson theory was almost accepted to be a fact. The most baffling thing about the few facts that are known is that the other fires were certainly not the work of anyone who wanted to start a real fire. They were abortive attempts and could not have been intended to do the damage which a pyromaniac would be intent upon doing. Both blazes were kindled with a few scraps of paper and torn pages of books. One burned itself out on the top of a table, the other in the open drawer of a desk.

These fires were not set by anyone who wanted to do the damage that was done to Dartmouth Hall. It is barely possible that a "perverted sense of humor" prompted the setting of those two fires and also of the one in the north end of Dartmouth which was also intended only to frighten the College but which actually resulted in great damage to the building. It is, however, difficult to reconcile this theory with the facts for experts testify that there is probably little if any connection between the two harmless blazes and the serious one. The results of two were negligible, while the other one, if set, must have been a very different thing. The big fire may have been entirely accidental—some of those closest to the investigation incline toward this explanation.

This is not a question that can be dismissed at all lightly. There must be no letup in the present investigation for if any person or persons are knowingly responsible for this fire they must be ferreted out and the community of Hanover freed from their insane "humor."