302 Securities against Fire, $-c. 



12. Our last article regards a repetition of some of our hints : first, 

 as to the importance of a wise plan for the construction of our build- 

 ings, so as to prevent the commencement of a conflagration in 

 them, and then the extension of that mischief. In a country where 

 the facility of obtaining lumber is great, we often see brick walls for 

 buildings, the roofs of which, are covered with wood ; and various 

 other hazards of the kind are wantonly incurred in the U. States. 

 When we add to this, the neglect of guarding staircases and passages 

 from fire, in the French manner, so sagaciously pointed out by Dr. 

 Franklin, we must perceive, that we have yet some important les- 

 sons to learn as to conflagrations in buildings. — Omitting to speak of 

 frequent fires among the frail buildings of the Asiatics, and of the 

 burning of Rome under Nero, and of Moscow, in our day, where de- 

 sign had the chief share in the catastrophe; we must admit, that the 

 greatest conflagration known in history of a casual description, was 

 that of London, the metropolis of our ancestors, in 1 666. The ground 

 floors of the houses then burned, were indeed in many instances cover- 

 ed with rushes ;* but a considerable fire occurred in London in the last 

 century, the London tavern being built on a part of the ruins; and 

 numerous fires still occur in that city, althougH many useful regulations 

 to prevent it are by law, constantly imposed on builders. But in Eng- 

 land, they have not yet applied to use, Dr. Franklin's discovery above 

 mentioned; the principles of which, are perhaps, not universally un- 

 derstood in France itself; and these principles, probably, are as little 

 known in England, as in the U. States. But it is time that they 

 should be known in both countries ; and particularly in the U. States, 

 where the increase of population will make the houses in large towns 

 every day more and more to approach each other, so as to favor the 

 spreading of fire in ihem.f 



Dr. Jortin in his life of Erasmus, Vol. U p. 77, has this passage. " Erasmus (in 

 • letter to a friend,) ascribes the plague, from which England wa3 hardly ever free, 

 and the sweating sickness, partly to the incommodious form and bad exposition of the 

 houses, to the filthiness of the streets, and to the sluttishness within doors. The 

 floors, (says he^) are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies un- 

 molested, an ancient collection of grease, fragments, bones, &c." — Dr. Jortin in his 

 second vol. (pp. 341, 342,) has given the original letter by Erasmus, which is still 

 more pointed than the above summary. — Neither plague nor sweating sickness, has 

 occurred in London, since 16G6, 



t Even "Rome itself, (according to the proverb,) was not built in a day." Mar- 

 tial, in his time saw great improvements made in it, even as to the streets ; for which 



