21st April. Tare well-known proverb "Prevention is better than Cure" is never more appropristely applied than to fire. Strange to say, no government, whether of city or State, seems to have made any really determined and adequate attack upon what may literally be described as this burning question. Tuke the case of London, for example. The latest returns to which we have access at the moment show that there is an average of nearly ten fires per day in the Metropolitan area, that every week two persons lose their lives therefrom, and that the monetary loss per annum may sometimes be counted in millions sterling. Our own returns are, of course, modest compared with these. Still in 1897, we had an average of three fires per fortnight, resulting in the destruction of 191 houses and the loss of most of their contents, to say nothing of the expense of the Bri Tf we make a very rough calculation, omitting the loss on Jardine's waste silk mill as being exceptional; and taking no note of partial losses, we shall find that an allowance of Tls. 500 per house for building and contents produces considerably over Tls. 100,000 who cost of the Brigade is thrown ix is by no means @ paltry sum in itself. But year by year both losses and expenditure tend to grow..'The number of houses destroyed last your was more than double that of the year before, and the estimated expenditure on the Fire Department is, during this current year, almost exactly double thatit was in 1893, only five years ago, It is therefore a pertinent question "Are we—is the world in general—doing all that might bea done to prevent fire?" The perfection of the American and, to a less degree, of the British organisations for.fighting it when started is sufficiently known, London is just uow adding 70 horaes, 122 men, and £200,000 as extra expenditure on her fire brigade. But why not employ some of this reckless waste—for it is waste rightly considered—to prevention rather than to cure? If one could live long enough to see the candid opinion of the historian of the fatare, it is morally certain that in this matter we should find ourselves pretty severely criticised. For men who have anni-dilated space, brought the lightning under control, and been successful in many a bout with Nature in all her varying moods—for these men to be foiled in the simple problem how to prevent the chemical union of given quantities of carbon and oxygen will be considered no less astounding than itis disgraceful. Scientific men will, with some reason, resent this imputation. They will declare that the means of preventing fire are already ample, and will shift the responsibility to the shoulders of the authorities. These again will declare that nothing will induce house-owners to go to the extra expense which science demands, and finally the property-owners with one voice assert that, if rents should be raised as a result of more expensive construction, nobody could be found to live in their houses. That is the position at the moment. It has not even the recommendation of novelty, for every improvement affecting large areas has had to run the gauntlet of the same series of objections.
What then is needed? Evidently a determination on the part of the authorities of city and State to insist on fire-resisting construction. The expression "fireproof" is misleading. Nothing is fire-proof under certain conditions. But architects and scientific men know that fire-resistance is by no monns difficult of attainment. Our local re~ quirements so far as prevention goes stop short at a few fire-walls, a regulation respecting the storage of Kerosene and gunpowder, and such minor matters as these. At home, things are not much better. A recent paper by an expert states: "'I'he building owner..... uses wood for floors, partitions, wall-linings, stairs, skirtings, roofs, and other things that could be as well formed of incombustible materials and at comparatively little increased cost." He proceeds to declare that the house construction in the metropolis to-day is such as to enable a "fire to spread with the greatest rapidity," and that if this hed been the actual object in view, "no better arrangement could be devised than the one usually adopted in house building." What this gentleman would say after an examination of our Chinese quarters we must leave to the imagination of our readers.
One of the main reasons why fire prevention lias received so little attention at the hands of the authorities is the facility with which insurance can be effected. Shareholders in insurance companies fatten on fire. Thayare so partial to the warmth of its embrace that they have no very strong liking for the water brigade which fights against it. Every big blaze is certain to bring in larger returns than it consumes. But the destruction is none the less serious for all that. Every atom of useful matter consumed by fire must be written off as an irrecoverable loss in the world's account books, Mankind is the poorer by so much, and however strenuous the exertions to quench the destroying element when once it has gained the mastery, these losses must continue until man adopts prevention as his motto and not conquest.
The construction of the ordinary native dwelling in Shanghai is not only a danger from accidental fires; it is a direct incentive to arson and incendiary ism. With their usual thoroughness these matters the Americans have tabulated the incendiary outbreaks which they attribute to crime, and find that there are more in January than la February, that the number increases
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.