same Report, that "it is true that negligence of construction on
the one hand, and want of care in management on the other, might
entail risk and loss to an enormous extent."

The following is a very clear proof of the inability of cast iron to
resist the effects of fire:--

"A chapel in Liverpool-road, Islington, seventy feet in length and
fifty-two feet in breadth, took fire in the cellar, on the 2nd
October, 1848, and was completely burned down. After the fire, it was
ascertained that of thirteen cast-iron pillars used to support the
galleries, only two remained perfect; the greater part of the others
were broken into small pieces, the metal appearing to have lost all
power of cohesion, and some parts were melted. It should be observed,
that these pillars were of ample strength to support the galleries
when filled by the congregation, but when the fire reached them, they
crumbled under the weight of the timber only, lightened as it must
have been by the progress of the fire."

In this case it mattered little whether the pillars stood or fell, but
it would be very different with some of the large wholesale warehouses
in the City, where numbers of young men sleep in the upper floors; in
several of those warehouses the cast-iron pillars are much less in
proportion to the weight to be carried than those referred to, and
would be completely in the draught of a fire. If a fire should
unfortunately take place under such circumstances, the loss of human
life might be very great, as the chance of fifty, eighty, or one
hundred people escaping in the confusion of a sudden night alarm, by
one or two ladders, to the roof, could scarcely be calculated on, and
the time such escape must necessarily occupy, independent of all
chance of accidents, would be considerable.

For the reasons here stated, I submit that large buildings, containing
considerable quantities of combustible goods, with floors of
brick-arches, supported by cast-iron beams and columns, are not,
practically speaking, fire-proof; and that the only construction which
would render large buildings fire-proof; where considerable quantities
of combustible goods are deposited, would be groined brick-arches,
supported by pillars of the same material, laid in proper cement. I am
fully convinced, from a lengthened experience, that the intensity of a
fire,--the risk of its ravages extending to adjoining premises, and
also the difficulty of extinguishing it, depend, _caete