1004 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H, 
consisting as it does of an external iron balcony to every floor and 
external iron stairs. It is based on what I saw in Chicago a few 
years ago and would be especially applicable to warehouses con- 
taining the more dangerous kinds of goods. In the latter case the 
important point is to avoid putting the lift in an enclosed shaft. 
It may be urged that if the foregoing proposals were generally 
carried out, the cost of building would be unduly increased ; but I 
have no intention of suggesting that they should be made universal. 
I do think, however, that it would be for the individual as well as 
the general good, if each city was divided into districts, and some 
such rules applied to the most valuable, the most congested, and 
from a fire point of view the most dangerous. For others near the 
centre, but not quite so important, less stringent rules would serve, 
while in outlying suburbs each man might well be allowed to do 
what seems good in his own eyes, provided he was sufficiently 
separated from his neighbours and thus would not cause them 
serious risk. 
In concluding this paper, may I be pardoned for quoting an 
extract from the one I read ten years ago in this place, descriptive 
of the buildings of that period. It is as follows :— 
Our present mode of building is to run up brick or stone walls as thin as 
the Building Act will permit, fill the openings with wooden frames, form 
the floors of inflammable Oregon joists, cover them with boards, ceil with 
thin wooden linings, cut them through from top to bottom for lifts cased in 
with wood if cased at all, divide the rooms with wooden partitions, erect a 
wooden staircase, and finally cover all in with a woodon roof: what is this 
but a magnified match box? Should a fire get a start at the bottom of a 
lofty building so constructed, nothing could save the occupants of the upper 
storeys, the danger of spreading would be increased ten-fold, and the risk of 
a general conflagration greatly angmented. 
Since that paragraph was written two great fires have occurred— 
the one in Sydney, and the other in Melbourne—and both owing 
to the buildings being of the character described. My criticisms 
have been more than justified, for several of the Melbourne buildings 
caught fire at the top instead of at the bottom, and yet their 
destruction was just as complete. Some progress has been made 
for which we should all be thankful ;_ but this dangerous class of 
building is still being erected in the heart of our cities, and my 
aim is to show that, from every point of view—-municipal, general, 
and individual—buildings of this class should be subject to regula- 
tion, and that it would pay everyone better to adopt those 
improvements in construction which experience has proved to be 
effective. 
