| Show AT BIRTH ILLINOIS FIREBUG CANNOT RESTRAIN HIMSELF woold baa good citizen were zt not for uh uncontrollable dire deal to set property affre an an tm of hereditary criminality HE alton alto ill P police a authorities u t b 0 r I 1 ties df have a unique prisoner on 0 n their t h e I 1 r I 1 hands bands and they are trying to decide whether he ought to be sent to the penitentiary or an asylum the man Is francis M loggan aad he be is by his own confession a lifelong life long fire bug of incorrigible pertinacity on a recent night a bad fire was discovered in priests Fri ests lumber yards just in time tor for the fire department to prevent a vast conflagration there was no clew to the origin of the fire and it was ascribed to sparks from a passing railroad engine early the next rooming morning a stranger stepped copped up to an officer of the night police force with the voluntary statement that he had purposely fired the lumber yards and desired to give himself up as an incendiary the th police regarded him as a freak but decided to hold hirn for investigation it proved that he was just out of the penitentiary at jefferson city mo having served a three year term there for a similar crime he also wore the pris on made clothing of missouri and has them yet in his present confinement in the madison county jail loggan io gan is s unquestionably craz crazy on the subject of but on any other theme he is as rational as any aay man liv OX 0 Y FRANCIS LOGGAN THE FIREBUG ing he has had good education and can discuss any subject with clear logic he says however that his mania for burning property has been with him from infancy and that he be knows himself to be a nuisance and a menace t to 0 soc society lety he once tried he says to destroy the city of baltimore having fined find some oil cars in a thickly populated district thinking that they would explode and start an unquenchable conflagration but the fire department was waa too quick for him and the fire laddies have ever stood in the way of his designs lumber yards are his especial weakness and he has caused many such fires that were never traced to their proper origin when asked tor for his photograph ha b said he had never had one taken but he readily accompanied the newspaper nuan maln to a photographer photograph eT accompanied by an officer and had a tintype made pronouncing it a very good likeness he has been placed under bonds to the september grand jury of the alton city court and Is being held with other alton prisoners in the county jail at edwardsville Edwards ville chief of police kuhn who has had to deal with all classes of criminals during his long career as a police officer says he be never heard tal 0 k a case just like this but he believes that loggan is just what he represents himself to be he says there Is no doubt that the man Is dangerous but ant is not sure that he be ought to be sent bent to the penitentiary as an ordinary ordinal a |
