SELLINGLUMBER 191 



that our careless methods, our failure to study requirements, and 



our ill-advised 'efforts to meet competition have recoiled most 



heavily upon us. Through the use of unsuitable material in the Efforts'to 



manufacture of shingles, and making them too thin and too wide, Meet 



to say nothing of the crowning folly of kiln-drying them, we have 



laid our product open to criticism and attack. 



The substitute manufacturer was not slow to see this oppor- 

 tunity to discredit the shingle by charging it with the responsibility 

 for a very heavy percentage of the annual national fire loss. He 

 has spilled oceans of printers' ink in giving publicity to his claims 

 for his own products, and his charges against ours ; while we have 

 made our usual mistake of sitting tight and saying nothing. We 

 might have called attention to the fact that bad methods of applica- 

 tion were more to blame than poor material and unsuitable sizes; 

 that roofs should be painted when made of shingles, as is absolutely 

 necessary with most of the substitute materials; that as a matter 

 of actual fact, the biggest part of the fire loss occurs in the busi- 

 ness sections of cities where shingles are not used, and where we 

 have never recommended that they be used, while a very big part 

 of the dwelling fire loss covers the contents, which would burn 

 just the same in a stone house under a cast-iron roof, and which 



do burn daily in brick and stone houses, under roofs of alleged , . 



oningles 

 fireproof qualities. We might have mentioned flimsy construction, the Fire 



defective wiring, defective flues, and the light-hearted carelessness Hazard. 

 about fire hazards which is so characteristic of the average American 

 city dweller. One or another of these last named causes is really 

 responsible for probably ninety per cent of the fires charged to 

 shingles. It will be observed that shingles are used almost ex- 

 clusively on country houses, and in small towns, where the fire 

 losses are very small, and that these shingles are almost never 

 painted. This means that the hazards of human carelessness, of 

 cheap construction, defective wiring and defective flues, which 

 are greatly reduced or altogether lacking in country and village, 

 are really responsible for the fires which are charged to shingles 

 in the cities. It will be observed further that practically every 

 conflagration which renews the outcry against shingles, starts in 

 city districts where the shingle never was used ; such fires con- 

 sume everything a concrete or brick dwelling yields as quickly as 

 does the frame structure. There are innumerable instances of fire 

 leaving untouched the frame building with shingle roof, while 

 it consumes brick and slate or iron on either side. 



