s also found that after the
first of the year the number of fires is greatly diminished, the
lighting and heating arrangements having been subjected to a period of
trial during which their most obvious defects would be remedied. While
it may readily be conceded that the utmost care of the owner of property
could not totally prevent great average losses from fire--for the
greater the holdings the more must the proprietor trust to the oversight
of others--it is evident that the above facts indicate the necessity of
more strenuous precautions at this season. Gas pipes and fittings should
then be tested; furnace flues and settings looked to; stove, heater, and
grate fixtures and connections examined--and in all these particulars
the scrutiny should be most closely directed to parts ordinarily covered
up or out of sight, so that any defect or weakness from long disuse may
be exposed. When to the above causes of fires we have added the
extremely fruitful one found in the extensive use of coal oil within a
few years past, we have indicated the most common sources of
conflagrations of known origin. An English authority gives the
percentages of different causes of 30,000 fires in London, from 1833 to
1865, as follows: Candles, 11.07; curtains, 9.71; flues, 7.80; gas,
7.65; sparks, 4.47; stoves, 1.67; children playing, 1.59; matches, 1.41;
smoking tobacco, 1.40, other known causes, 19.40; unknown causes, 32.88.
The foregoing figures do not give the percentage of incendiary fires,
and later statistics would, no doubt, show vastly more fires from the
use of kerosene than are here attributed to candles.

The prevention of fires, and the best means of minimizing the loss when
they do occur, are topics which cover a wide field, and a collection of
the literature on the subject would make a very respectable library. As
the question presents itself to-day, it may well be doubted whether the
general practice of large property holders of insuring all their
possessions does not tend to lessen the constant vigilance which is the
most essential requisite in preventing fires. Thousands of merchants
never mean to keep a dollar's worth of goods in store or warehouse that
is not fully covered by insurance, and they make this cost a regular
charge upon their business as peremptorily as they do the wages paid the
hands in their employ. But few manufacturers can so completely cover
their risks by insurance, yet a large portion of them do so as far a