CHICAGO FIRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 48, 23 December 1871, Page 17

CHICAGO FIRE.

riNDBPBNDEKT.] The fate that has recently befallen the commercial metropolis of the Western States of America, should teach a salutary lessor!’ to the inhabitants of wooden cities, and arouse them to a sense of the paramount 'necessity of providing every available precaution against the spread of fire. Chicago was, next to New York, the largest, most populous, and prosperous city in America. It was noted as much for the excellent administration of its local affairs, and the public spirit of its inhabitants, as for its commercial activity. There was no want of any of the modern appliances of a high state of civilisation, and yet in a few short hours no less than twelve thousand houses were destroyed, and one hundred thousand people rendered homeless. And the origin of this terrible calamity was due to a simple accident which, considering the injury that followed, appears almost absurd. A restive cow kicked over a small kerosene lamp in a stable, the burning liquid ran out on to the wooden pavement, and a high wind speedily spread the flames over the greater part of the gigantic city. And this result might have been prevented but for one of those acts of neglect that are seldom discovered until some catastrophe reveals them It appears that one of the large steam engines used for pumping water out of the adjoining lake for the supply of the city had been out of repair, and although public attention had been directed to it nothing was done. When the fire broke out there was a scarcity of water, and the fire had its own way, ceasing only when ninetenths of the city had been consumed. And all this was, as a recent writer on the subject says, “ the penalty of the collective thoughtlessness of busy citizens too intent on individual* affairs to consider deeply enough the terrible danger to a great city with wooden pavements and an insufficient water supply.” And the writer goes on to remark upon the tendency which men have when gathered in masses to merge all social vigilance and wariness in individual vigilance and wariness. And he is quite right. In most cases, communities such as those who form the population of colonial cities appear to trust the safety of their individual and collective property to the caution which each person may be supposed to ordinarily exercise in his own dwelling. And there is besides too much of that blind faith in chance —refusing to really believe that at any moment both lives and property may be sacrificed through a more simple accident than a cow kicking a lamp. But is it a fact that individually the inhabitants —let us say of "Wellington—exercise profound caution in dealing with fire or lights ? You will see men lighting their pipes fling down the burning match with an utter disregard of consequences; heads of families go out and leave their young children at home to play with the kitchen fire; kerosene lamps are allowed to become foul and explosive ; and hundreds of such acts of carelessness occur every day. Not long ago the General Assembly buildings were endangered through hot ashes from fireplaces having been stowed away in a wooden contrivance only a few yards from the buildings. There is absolutely no security in any wooden city against the occurrence of fire, and here in Wellington the whole town might be consumed in an hour if such a wind as we had last Thursday happened to be blowing. And what have we in this city, or what have they in many other cities in New Zealand, that can effectually guard against a catastrophe such as has befallen Chicago—such as befel Lyttelton recently ? The most that is done is to trust to two or three little engines, a few volunteer firemen, such pools of water as may ' chance to be handy, and to that general fatalism mbraced in the doctrine of “ trusting in *- Providence.” If a man happen to insure his property he fancies himself safe and folds his hands, scarcely ever thinking of the general safety of the public. We may with profit give some further remarks of the writer we have already quoted ; he says : —“ The men who insured their property in Chicago never thought of insuring the city against the danger of depending on insurances. The rashness of busy words and and wealthy corporations is

far greater than the rashness of individuals. And yet prudence and vigilance in societies is .a higher, less selfish, one may say a more spiritual, virtue than prudence and vigilance in individuals and in families. The duties it suggests are far less urgently pressed upon the attention, and require a more disinterested circumspection to be duly performed. Considerateness in guarding against dangers which may never affect ourselves, —which on the doctrine of chance are hardly ever likely to affect ourselves, —is one of the higher qualities of the true statesman, a virtue which requires a keen sense of the invisible which is concerned with others than ourselves.” Chicago was, no doubt, one of the most earnest, industrious, vigorous centres of civilisation in the whole Union; but it was also one of the most go-ahead and confident, one of those least alive to the true moral difficulties and temptations of civilisation. With societies, as with individuals, it is often those which have the noblest elements in them which receive the earliest and severest warnings. To Chicago this has come in the shape of a frightful reminder of what we may call its physical heedlessness, its carelessness of the need and duty of keeping a vigilant guard against Nature, who seems to avail herself so cruelly of the multiplications of human ingenuities and energies to multiply also human perils.” The question of fire prevention in towns is one that demands much greater attention by the local bodies and the Parliament of the colony than it has hitherto received. We do not see* why municipal bodies should not be compelled to provide protection against fire quite as much as to keep streets clean. The happy-go-lucky manner in which this important matter is dealt with is disgraceful to our boasted civilisation, and it is to be hoped the Government will lose no time in dealing with it. We shall have some further remarks to make upon this subject in a future issue.