HORSES FOR STEAMERS.

145

But let us see the
A town near Boston

this kind of incendiarism. result when drawn by men. purchased a steam fire-engine. They also kept in commission one or two manual engines. The steamer required fifty or sixty men, and the others only twenty or thirty to draw them to the fire. Of course the small manual would be at the fire and at work, taking the honors from the steamer every time, and for this fires were set every week! Horses were furnished for the steamer, and she was put to work first, when the fires ceased. The remedy for this, the worst kind of incendiarism, is to do away with the old manual system of suction engines. The best remedy for other kinds, is the introduction of small engines. At present the proof of a fire being set, is burned up before the great engines can be got to work; but if water could be got on the fire in one or two minutes after it was discovered, the means employed by the incendiary would almost always be saved, and be witnesses against him. No man would set his house on fire to save his insurance, if the chances were ten to one that the fire would be put out in two or three minutes, and that instead of his insurance he would get ten or a dozen years in the state prison.

10

CHAPTER IX.

SYSTEMS, NEW AND OLD.

FIRE INSURANCE.

It is within the memory of many people, when insurance against fire was unknown except in a few large cities. If a fire occurred, their townsmen gave the sufferers what would relieve their present need, though seldom enough to keep them from future want and suffering. Therefore when it became known that for a few dollars per annum, the buildings of a farm, or of the merchant or mechanic, would be replaced, if destroyed by fire, there was an almost universal resort to that excellent means of safety. This result was hastened, when some person, who was not insured, suffered a loss, and when his neighbors were called upon, as in past times, for aid, gave for answer, "He might have had his buildings insured." In those times buildings were seldom so crowded together, built so high, or in any way so out of the reach of the fire departments. Nor were there then the friction match, the inflammable oils, or the dozen other fire-setting materials which in our times have

been introduced, or worst of all, the incendiarism for fun, bread and cheese and rum, which for years was the great curse of our country, and which is to this day one of the most prolific causes of fire in the country.

The business of the insurance offices was managed with economy, and the result was that the insured were sure of their money if their buildings were destroyed, while insurance stock was one of the safest investments for those who had money, and immense amounts of the property of widows and orphans were placed in them as the safest and most profitable investment which could be made for them. For many years this pleasant state of things continued, but it is hardly possible for such perfection to last forever in this sphere, and the invention of matches and the increase of the use of pipes a thousand fold, with oils and chemicals, the dangerous nature of which was unknown to many who had to use them, increased both the number and magnitude of fires. Of course the rate of insurance also increased, and the fires and rates at last became a burden. All this while, buildings with tarred paper and tinderwood roofs were climbing heavenward out of the reach of fire departments, and so when at last the destruction of cities became an annual sensation, and the insurance companies went up

with them, the people who lost by them laid all the burden upon the insurance companies as if they already had not enough of their own to bear. The insurance people made a grave mistake when they insured those fire-traps at all. Twenty per cent. per annum, will not be a safe premium for a city or town, where those buildings are near together, and where the only protection is steam fire-engines. But why throw all the shot at the poor insurance companies. We have not heard a word against the merchants whose property was destroyed by fire in the cities of Chicago and Boston. Yet they were as much at fault as the others. The merchants were unfortunate, and so were the companies, with this difference, that the companies warned the merchants not to build such dangerous warehouses. We ridicule the fashions of the women, but they all for the past century have not cost as much as the great fires from dangerous roofs have in a few years; nor have they ever had a fashion even on their heads so ridiculous as the great high buildings of six or more stories with the roof composed of tarred paper and pine-boards. Insurance people are not perfect, as there is no perfection here. There are in their number-- well what there are in every class of men. But nowhere, in any business class of people, will you find more intelligent, courteous, liberal, fair-minded men,

more willing to do entire justice, nay, to help those who have suffered by fire, than the officers of insurance companies. They are careful, and if not we must all lose by them. They sometimes seem to suspect persons, or ask questions which may seem to do so. But this they have learned to do from

their intercourse with customers who too often are not honest men.

I cannot answer for the companies at Chicago; but I know that the officers of the Boston companies, as gentlemen and careful, conscientious business men, rank, in mercantile phrase, A No. 1, when compared with any other class in the community.

I read lately in a journal that the rate of insurance had been raised in Boston and in New York. I not only see the necessity of it, but I also believe that unless we can have our present buildings made more safe, more indestructible, and our fire departments sooner at work at fires, with the rates doubled, it will not continue to be a safe business, or a proper investment for the property of widows and orphans. It may be so for a few years, perhaps, but it also is liable to almost instant destruction from conflagrations which no department is able to control in a high wind. "Unstable as the wind; " yet the entire property of millions of the people of the United States is at the mercy of the elements.