71 



FIRES IN TOKIO. 



liV PKOFESSOH K. VAMAGAWA. 



In tlie City of Tokio, tires are so frequent and destnictive, tliat tliey 

 doubtless involve greater losses in the shape of [)roperty destroyed than all other 

 causes conibined. To cue who has not resided in Tokin, it is difficult to 

 conceiTO their mignitula and the djv.istition ciuse.l by them. It is not 

 strange that residents of foreign countries, who liave never been in Japan, can 

 hardly credit the accounts of these conflagrations which are published; for in 

 their own countries, houses are, in general, so much more substantial in tlieir 

 character, that tliey are not oidy less combustible, but the progress of a fire is 

 tlms made slow enough to render the taslc of extinction comparatively easy. 

 ^Vith us, however, liouses are generally wooden, and on windy days, when a fire 

 is once started it is likely to grow, within a short spice of time, to one of 

 extensive magnitude and even with far better means of extinguishing fires, tlian 

 we liave at i)resent, it would be almost impossible to ai'iest it until it dies away 

 of itself on reaching the limits of the city, or by reason of the entire cessation 

 iif the wind. It is said, tliat in Tokio, the average age of a house is seven years, 

 that is to say, the whole city is burned every seven years. The assertion is no 

 doubt exagerated as regards to the greater portion of the city, but if we take the 

 most populous parts such as Kanda and Nihoid)aslii wards, the above assertion 

 is very approximately true. Dm-ing the reign (if the Tokugawa Slmguns, Tokio, 

 then called Yedo, with double the jiresent jiopulation, was the emporium of 

 wealth of the whole of Japan ; and any destruction of projierty was made good 

 by the rest of the country, as fast as it occurred, so that not only were fires less 

 dreaded tlian would be ex[)ected, but in some cases they were ratlim- dcsircil 

 than otherwise. Paradoxical as it seems, cnnflagratinns used U> lie called the 

 "ornaments of the city." I cannot go into details to explain the complicated 

 system of Feudalism that bore such strange fruit as this; suffice it to say that 

 in old times tlie population was much larger than at present, and the people had 

 less fear of fires, so that they occmred much more frequently before the late 

 revolution, one of the restdts of whieh was the destruction of the finidal .s^'stem, 

 than at present. IJelow will !«• found a table of areas of houses liurned each 

 year since the revolution in 1SG8. The column of areas gives the space actually 

 occupied by houses l)nrned <lnring each year und estimated in tsiiljo. one tstiho being 

 about C) feet H<piarc. The total area occupieil by houses in Tokio at th(! present 

 time, is 3, l.'ir>,858 tsnbo, so tliat tln' mean in the tablr is almnt 1 ^ % of the total 

 area «x-eupied by houst'S, and at this rate it will be aliout (i'l years liefere the 

 wlioie city is burned once. Tliis, liowever, is a civlcidation based on the 

 HtatisticH of the pcrifMl known to have been more free from fires than any 

 other, so that this rate may or may not hold in the future. On the one hand 

 the iiopnlation is increasing very fast, which fact will make tlie probability of 



