THE RECENT FIRE.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 227, 17 January 1885, Page 3

THE RECENT FIRE.

What would have been the effect of an explosion of the gasometers, had such a catastrophe happened, is more a matter for conjecture than of absolute calculation; but it is safe to say that it would have involved wholesale loss of life, and widespread destruction of property. The lesson, however, which the municipal authorities should lay to heart is that there is room for a vast deal more energy, enterprise, and precaution in devising- safeguards for life and property in a growing city and rapidly increasing population. In the larger cities at Home, these matters have been the result of long experience and progressive scientific and Si.uiita.iy education ; but, in many colonial towns, they are largely subject to accidental circumstances and chance. We seem to gain our knowledge mainly from the calamities which are the result of apathy, negligence, and ignorance. We advance by a series of painful experiments, almost regardless of the wider experience and established facts of older countries. Perhaps, it will some day dawn on the united wisdom of our civic rulers that the centre of a densely populated neighborhood an I the immediate vicinity of enormous stores of inflammable timber is not exactly the best site for gasworks ; that to render a large timber yard comparatively safe from accident by lire, and to prevent danger to surrounding property, the yard should be walled in ; that the very heart of a populous and fast-extending city is not the place for a great cemetery, if proper regard is to be paid to the public health ; and that, in short, there are many sources of danger to property, health, and life, which it is prudent to minimise to to the utmost.