The principal of these are the sheer inadequacy of fire-fighting Paraphernalia, and red tape. Tokyo, although a city of close on 2,000, 000 inhabitants, has only 50 motor-Pumps for fighting fires. If the suburbs be included, this large and sprawling conglomeration of villages, which is called the capital ity of Japan, has about 3,000,000 souls. With the greater portion of the city composed of shacks, erowded together, a veritable feast for fire, and situated amidst narrow, twisting streets, it needs no ofer to see that the means at the posal of Japan's en pital for tackl ablaze are very inadequate, Red tape also is responsible for anton loss of life and property that, week in, week out, is "part and'pareel of Tokyo's life. The fire! departnients of the city and of the suburbs work in water-tight compartments. When fire breaks out in the suburbs, the City fire brigades are interested, but indifferent. They will muster on the: imaginary line dividing the suburbs from the City proper and concentrate their efforts only preventing the flames from invading the City limits, At Nippon, for' instance, the City fire brigades were on hand, but merely stuck to their! guns, or their fire-engines, this side! of the boundary, and watched the suburb being slowly eaten to destruction.
Brigade Quite Useless At Nippon, the fire simply burnt itself out. The efforts of the)
the suburb were worse Primitive gael pane of) than useless. The-dead are estimated at 15|And the Lady's and the injured at about 100.
No longer does the Tokyo-ite regard fires as he or she did in olden times, when to conflagrations were given the poetic name of "Plowers of Yedo," because it was then thought that fires were fertile source for the young men }to display the beautiful virtues of heroism, fearlessness and chivalry. Modern' conditions, have changed that. psychology. To-day, Tokyo's millions live in a constant dread of fire, and this terror has been intensified since the earthquake holocaust a: the Hifukusho (formerly the site of the Army Clothing Depot) in Hongo, a district of Tokyo, when more than 30,000 were roasted to death in the space of a few hours.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.