Peculiarly Serious Situation Because of Lack of Fire Protection – The Latest Blaze – Citizen Meet.

Special to The State.

Camden, Nov. 10 – At 7:45 this evening the fire bell again sounded and an excited crowd followed the reel cart at it dashed up Broad street and stopped in front of the office of the “Camden Chronicle.” No fire was visible from the street and it was ascertained that the blaze had been extinguished. There is no doubt that the fire was incendiary. It was set against the east corner of The Chronicle building, in the yard back of that structure and there is a very perceptible odor of kerosene on the weather-boarding where the fire was discovered. The yard is surrounded by a high fence, and The Chronicle building is a long wooded structure, which would have been an easy prey of the flames.

Mr. Joel Hough who lives about fifty yards further up the street was walking down the street with his little daughter, when the child caught sight of the fire, which could only have been started a few minutes before that, Mr. Hough ran back to his house and got a bucket of water, at the same time giving the alarm. Had it not been for the timely discovery of the blaze $7,000 to $8,000 of property would probably have been destroyed.

Practically without fire protection as Camden now is, these recent acts of incendiarism are all the graver, and the fiend who perpetrates these is as yet undiscovered.

As a result of last night’s fire a number of citizens held a meeting at the opera house this afternoon to discuss the question of fire protection, and empowered the chairman of the meeting, Mr. C. J. Shannon, Jr., to appoint a committee whose duty it shall be to wait upon the city council and confer with it in regard to the state of affairs now existing.