ing,
have been covered with placards and posters of a character to enrage the
common people, and make them turn their thoughts to fresh massacres.

It is said on good authority, that the placards come from the Sultan, and
have been posted by his orders.

It is also said that he hopes to provoke the people and cause fresh
rioting, and so break up the conference which so much annoys him.

Another massacre may be expected any moment.

* * * * *

There is a movement on foot in New York, to prevent any more of the very
high buildings being put up.

It seems that no one has any idea of the danger from high buildings.

The Board of Trade and Transportation, which is trying to get a bill
passed in Albany, preventing any further work of this sort being done,
asked the Chief of the Fire Department to come before it and give his
opinion of these high structures.

He told the committee, that at the present time the Fire Department could
not fight a fire in any of these tall buildings. He said that none of the
engines owned by the department could throw a stream of water higher than
125 feet from the ground, and that all floors over that height would have
to be left to burn.

All the very high buildings are supposed to be fire proof, and Chief
Bonner was asked what he thought about them. He laughed, and said there
was no such thing as a fire-proof building, and that in fact the
iron-framed structures, supposed to be fire-proof, were perhaps a little
more dangerous than the old style of brick building. He said that these
frames become heated and bend, pulling the walls down, so that they fall
much more quickly than they used to, and make the firemen's work more
difficult.

The only absolutely fire-proof building that he knew of was the Public
Library in Boston, where there was no wood at all used in the
building--the doors and window frames even being of iron. He was sure that
so long as wood was used in the construction of any part of a building, it
was quite impossible to call it fire-proof.

Several architects were asked to give their opinions, and also some
engineers who had made a study of the laws of health.

These men were all agreed that high buildings were unsanitary--which means
bad for the health--and that they made all the lower buildings around them
unsanitary too, by shutting off the light and air, and making them dark,
and inclined to be damp.

The general opinion was so m