A LOCAL DEPARTMENT 



IX 



Fire Escapes on Connecticut School- 

 Houses. 



The most surprising' part, and per- 

 haps the only surprising part of the 

 bill to be presented in our Connecticut 

 State Legislature by Senator Hanford 

 S. Weed of New Canaan, is the fact 

 that such a law is not already on our 

 books. Every school in the land should 

 be supplied with a fire escape. Our 

 people will never forget that awful 

 catastrophe in Collinwood, Ohio, only 

 a few years ago, where a schoolhouse 

 was burned, and one hundred and 

 sixty-five children met their death. 

 Language is not strong enough to ex- 

 press all that should be stated in re- 

 gard to any school board who will 

 pen up children in any schoolhouse 

 from which they could not readily es- 

 cape in case of fire. It is said that for 

 every school day in the year a school- 

 house burns somewhere in the United 

 States. If that is true, then certainly 

 the laws regarding fire escapes cannot 

 be too strenuous, nor too rigidly en- 

 forced. If on our law books in Con- 

 necticut, there is no statute providing 

 for this, then we cannot comprehend 

 why any legislature should vote against 

 Senator Weed's bill, or a revision of it, 

 if that may be necessary. By all means 

 let us have a law and have that law 

 enforced, that shall make it impossible 

 for any school officials, by the laws 

 of compulsory education, to expose the 

 children to the danger of being burned 

 alive. 



An Invitation to Arcadia. 



You are cordially invited to call soon 

 at Arcadia. There is a special interest 

 at the present time. Non-members will 

 please come during visiting hours, or 

 make an appointment by telephone in 

 accepting this, invitation. 



Furnishing Homes Near to Nature. 



It is a pretty little compliment to 

 one's guests to have posted on the walls 

 that, "The ornaments of a home are 

 the guests who frequent it." Undoubt- 

 edly there is good literary, even class- 

 ical authority for the statement. Such 

 a motto looks well when engraved on 

 a bronze tablet or cut in rustic letters 

 in a stone of the fireplace. It adds to 

 the happiness of the guests . and pro- 

 duces in the host a feeling that he has 

 said the proper thing in a picturesque 

 way at the proper time. "What," says 

 Emerson, "is the end of all this appar- 

 atus of living — what but to get a num- 

 ber of persons who shall be happy in 

 each other's society, and be seated at 

 the same table?" 



But like most similar statements that 

 may be true, it is only in part true, and 

 in this particular case only a very 

 small part. The ornaments of a home 

 are the furnishings, good, substantial, 

 attractive furniture. Those who come 

 to appreciate and enjoy these furnish- 

 ings, as well as the hosts' hospitality, 

 are the real guests. What homes in- 

 numerable along the Connecticut coast, 

 and in other perhaps distant places, 

 bear record to the good taste of those 

 that have secured the furniture and the 

 pictures from the long existent store 

 of Lyman Hoyt's Son & Company, of 

 Stamford Connecticut. No longer does 

 Mr. Hoyt or his son preside. Years 

 ago they passed into the unknown, but 

 the work continues, increasing- and im- 

 proving under the skilled management 

 of the brothers, Charles H. and Wil- 

 liam H. Martin. Their success has 

 been largely due to their understanding 

 of the fact that the first essentials to- 

 ward making a home or a store attract- 

 ive, are geniality and cordiality and a 

 general spirit of good will, united with 

 quiet, refined, dignified taste. These 



