THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8195, 27 July 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1906.

Mr Joseph K. Freitag in the Eugineeriug Magazine, pleads earnestly for the passing of legislation iu ■Arnetica compelling the enforcement of general building rjquiremout9 Bimilar to those in force in European countries. His convincing article shows, at any rate, that in this respect the United States are far behind the more conservative oldworld countries, The fact that lumber is scarce and expensive in Europe, whilst in the United States it has been cheap and easily available, aooounts for the difference in building methodic Some of Mr Preitag's figures are positively startling. It is estimated that the annual fire losd in (he United States now represents a tax of £5 per year per family of population. In 1904 the total loss by fire in. the States was £46,003,000 or an average dally loss of £126,000. To show even more plainly what this stupendous drain uoon the resources of the country really means, take the actual losses by Are tabulated by the National Board of Pire Underwriters, and it, will be found that, in the past 25 years, no less than 3,500,000,000 dollars f£7U0,000,000) worth of property has been sacrificed to this

national waste. This great total may be better appreciated if compared to the national debt of the United States, which, at the highest point ever reaohed, on Jaly Ist, 1866, amounted to 2,733,236,173 dollars (£550,000,000). In 1904, nearly 7,000 people lost their lives in fire oausaalties in the United States, a daily average of nineteen lives throughout the year, thus nearly equalling the deaths from railroad disasters in the country, where the statistics for suoh casualties show confessedly the worst conditions in the world. Mr Freitag makes an instructive comparison between fire losses in Amerioan oities and in those of Eirope and Great Britain, where, he saye, fire resistance has been recognised as a public necessity for centuries past: —The annual fire loss in Boston is now about £300,000, while in an average European city of equal population the fire loss will be found seldom to range over £30,000. in suoh cities as Havre, Rouen, Milan, Kome, Brussels, Antwerp, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol, every fire in the year 1890 was confined to the building in which it originated. In Dresden, Florence, Vienna and other oities evftry fire was confined to the floor on which it originated. In Hamburg, out of a total of 682 fires in 1890 659 were confined to the floor where they started, 660 to the building, while only 10 fires extended to the adjoining property. A conflagration, or the extension of fire beyond the immediately adjoining property, had not been known since 1842. And we must bear in mind that many of these results are obtained in spite of what Americans would consider the most ridioulous flra-flghting facilities. Mr Freitag says that the San Francisco disaster has, at any rate, proved that the steel-frame buildings are practically immure from earthquakes, and also that fire-proof buildings are cf little use unless they stand in a fireproof city.