The victims of this new "black peril" are wondering at whose door they should knock to obtain compensation. The managing director of one insurance company has laid it down as a principle that no fire insurance company will accept responsibility for any such damage unless the explosion causes a fire or unless the policy contains a special clause covering such risks. Failing these two conditions, the householder whose dining-room is wrecked by a shower of hot coals from his stove might be tempted to turn for redress towards his coal merchant, but the latter would no doubt reply that he sold the fuel as he received it and that the sale of so ordinary an article of domestic use could not be expected to carry a guarantee against loss or damage. Yet the fact that damage to the property of "A" has occurred through the legitimate use of goods supplied by "B'? seems to "imply a certain amount of liability on the part of "RB." It is a question which might form a very interesting subject of debate for lawyers and insurance ex While this knotty point is still undecided, many Parisians are giving up their stoves and taking to wood fires. Guests invited' out to dinner or bridge at friends' houses now look apprehensively to seo if the heat comes from ai stove.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.