A Rope of Rags, a Jar of Coal Oil, and a Tacoma Arson Plot

TACOMA, Sept. 10.—[Special.]—A quick response by the fire department before daylight this morning prevented Carl Huesbsche's three-story tenement building on G street, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth streets, from burning, and disclosed a very carefully laid plan to destroy the place before even the most alert fire department could be expected to reach the scene. Chief Bruemmer discovered in the basement a rope of rags varying from one to six inches in thickness, which, after crossing the basement floor, continued up stairs, being carefully entwined about the banister railing. It slacked into each of the fifteen rooms upstairs and was well saturated with coal oil. In the basement was a fruit jar filled with coal oil, into which the incendiary's rope also passed. The building is heavily mortgaged, and the $4,000 insurance is not payable to the holder of the mortgage, but to the owner of the building. The owner of the building lives in the basement, his being the only family living on the premises. He is reported having departed for Neah Bay yesterday morning. It is claimed the building was not worth $3,000, and that the furniture in the house, while insured for $1,000, was not worth $100.