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* * * * *

FIRES--CAUSES AND PREVENTION.

It is estimated that the total annual losses of insured property by
fire, throughout the world, average nearly two hundred million dollars.
Add to this the annual destruction of uninsured property, and we should
probably have a total amounting to quite double these figures. How great
the loss, how severe the tax upon the productive industry of mankind,
this enormous yearly destruction amounts to, will come home to the minds
of most readers more directly if we call attention to the fact that it
just about equals the value of our total wheat crop during a year of
good yield. And it is a direct tax upon productive industry everywhere,
because, although here and there a nominal loser, fully insured, has
only made what is sometimes called "a good sale" to the companies
holding his risk, this is only a way of apportioning the loss whereby
the community at large become the sufferers. Thus it is that we find all
ably-managed insurance companies earnestly endeavoring to make it plain
to the public how fires should be guarded against, or most effectually
localized and controlled when once started.

During the fall, or from "lighting up" time till about New Year's day,
more fires occur ordinarily than in any other portion of the year. This
fact points to some of the most general causes of conflagrations--as in
the lighting and heating of houses, factories, etc., where this had not
been necessary during the summer months. It i