Pyromania or Not?
The alarming extent to which the incendiary destruction of farm buildings in York county, Pa., and Carroll county, Md., near the State boundary line, was carried, led to the employment by the Manheim Mutual Insurance Company of eight Pinkerton detectives. They report, as one of the results of “patient search and vigil long,” two classes of fires—one prompted by revenge for grievances, real or assumed, on the part of “barn-burners’ gangs;" the other occasioned by individuals not connected in any way with the “gangs,” and actuated by no discoverable motive.
Among the eases where the isolation was such that there was no chance whatever for collusion with accomplices, was that of a sixteen-year-old girl named Rosa F2. Weaver, a niece and adopted daughter of a widow, Mrs. Peggy Wentz, near Lineboro’, who burned Mrs. Wentz’s barn. She was arrested on suspicion, and taken to the jail of York county, where she confessed the crime, and explained that she failed in two attempts, but succeeded the third time in destroying the barn and contents. When questioned as to the instigation, she replied, “ I don’t know. 1 guess the devil made me do it.” Mrs. Wentz affirms that their “ personal relations were pleasant,” that Rosa’s training had been excellent,” that she “attended Sunday-school and church regularly,” that she was “held in high esteem by the neighbors,” and was “ in all respects a model young girl.”
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