THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON.
Among the events for which the past year will for ever remain a marked twelvemonth on the page of history, is the Great Fire of London, which broke out, for a considerable period, three nights every week, as a public prediction had declared it should, regularly, till further notice.
We are fortunately enabled to give the particulars of this great conflagration on the occasion of one of its grandest eruptions. It commenced a little after dusk, and there can now exist no doubt that it was the work of more than one incendiary.
Flames were distinctly seen to issue from one of the windows of Old St. Paul's (which seemed to have been renovated only to be re-consumed). They evidently proceeded from a torch, which, we are assured, was applied by a man in a seal-skin cap.
No less than three individuals were observed, busy in assisting the progress of the flames, by tossing ignited straw, &c., about with pitchforks. The glare distinctly revealed their shirt sleeves, thus proving them to be without coats: but, owing to the confusion, their faces were not identified.
The devouring element was brought, by a lad in a short jacket (said to have been out at elbows), with aid of a lighted stick, into contact with the touch-hole of a howitzer, which exploded with a loud noise. This proceeding was frequently repeated during the evening,—it is believed out of mere wantonness. The same heartless principle induced others to throw squibs, crackers, and other fireworks into the blazing ruins.
Neither the crowd nor the attendant policemen offered in the smallest degree to interfere. The cries and shouting of the multitude were tremendous, but seemed to partake of an exulting character.
By a little past ten o'clock the flames got under, apparently of their own accord; and, though several towers and steeples had been seen to fall with a tremendous crash, which was heightened by the frequent tocsin of gongs and the explosion of artillery, little damage is imagined to have been done, the destruction having principally extended to the fireworks and other combustibles already mentioned.
The motive assigned for this act of incendiarism is sheer self-interest on the part of the perpetrators, who received a shilling a head from people who came to witness it. The fiendish project, we fear, was crowned with the most complete success.