Richmond Enquirer

A diabolical attempt was made between ten and eleven o'clock, on Saturday morning, to set fire to the Baltimore Exchange. The presence of smoke in the upper rooms of Page's Hotel, induced some of the servants to endeavor to discover the cause; and at length, on ascending to the upper landing of the stairway leading to the dome, they found that a lighted candle had been placed in such a manner as to communicate to the short flight of steps by which the dome is entered. The fire, however, had happily made but little progress, and a few buckets of water served to extinguish it. The commission of this attempt, in the open day, so closely resembles others that have been heretofore made, that we cannot but believe the perpetrator or perpetrators are persons whose appearance is not calculated to excite suspicion. As late as ten o'clock on Saturday morning, the marine news collector and a merchant were in the dome, looking through the telescope at some vessels below, and when the fire was discovered perhaps not more than an hour had elapsed. What motive can prompt these fiends in human shape to destroy the finest and most costly public structures of the city, remains yet to be developed.—Baltimore American