Gold Hill Daily News

Another attempt was made to burn Eureka last evening. The club-room in the rear of the Eureka Hotel was fired, and the flames had made considerable headway before being discovered. A few minutes later and the whole building would have been enveloped by the devouring element. The burning of so large a building as the Eureka Hotel would necessarily have carried the entire town with it. Fortunately, the proprietor, J. W. Elyson, discovered the fire, and with the aid of Thomas Ferguson and some others, speedily extinguished it. The wall inside was found to have been saturated with coal oil, and hence the rapid progress of the flames. There can be no mistake about this, for the gentlemen who occupy the rooms had just stepped into the dining hall to take dinner, leaving everything in the club rooms apparently secure. The oil had evidently been thrown up against the wall, and the torch applied. All who examined the premises were agreed upon this. But the motive of the incendiary was not so clear. It must, however, have been plunder. The firing of the hotel was doubtless meant to sweep the town, and thus give the perpetrators of the dastardly attempt ample opportunity to prosecute the work of pillage. When the facts of the case became known, there was universal indignation among the citizens and property-holders; and, had the guilt been fixed for certain on any one, he would doubtless have been obliged to dance at the end of a rope in short order. Several characters have been "spotted," and the chances are very favorable for a little neck-tie party one of these nights, if they do not walk very straight. The people of Eureka are in no temper to be trifled with in matters of this kind.--Eureka Sentinel, Nov. 11.