PERIODICAL LITERATURE 



SILVICULTURE, PROTECTION, AND EXTENSION 



The March number of the Annals of the 

 American American Academy of PoHtical and Social 



Fh'e Waste Science is devoted to modern insurance prob- 

 lems, containing twenty-two articles on this sub- 

 ject, each written by an expert. Among these is one on American 

 Fire Waste and Its Prevention, by Franklin H. Wentworth, secretary- 

 treasurer of the National Fire Protection Association. Some startling 

 statistical data are plainly put in the article. The fire w^aste in the 

 United States and Canada is roughly ten times as much per person as 

 in Europe — which may be partly accounted for by Europe's greater 

 population and the greater number of wooden buildings in America. 



The American annual fire waste is $3 per capita, or, with an average 

 family of five (father, mother, and three children), means an annual 

 tax of $15 per family. The annual loss from fires in the United States 

 and Canada for the past ten years has averaged $230,000,000. The 

 author tersely says : "We are the most careless people with matches 

 on the face of the earth. In Europe, if you want matches, you have 

 to go where they are kept. In America matches are everywhere — on 

 our bureaus, in our desk drawers, on the mantelpieces, library tables, 

 in all our old waistcoat pockets in the closets. If we wake up in the 

 middle of the night and reach out and can't find a match, we feel 

 insulted ! And yet every match is a potential conflagration. Fire from 

 a single match may burn a whole city." 



Mr. Wentworth urges as a remedy (1) the construction of stone, 

 concrete, and brick buildings, with metal window frames and wired 

 glass. He is strongly against wooden buildings in cities, and especially 

 condemns the wooden shingle, which has been the cause of considerable 

 discussion, pro and con, in lumber journals for several years past. 

 (2) Revision of our building codes. (3) Frequent and rigid fire in- 

 spection. (4) Placing responsibility. 



W^hat may serve as a fire slogan is stated by the author : "Nearly 

 every fire is the result of some carelessness ; and the careless man milst 

 be held up to public criticism as a man who has picked the pockets of 

 the rest of us, because that is what it is in the final analysis." 



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