72 



fires greati.T, aiul ou the titlier liutid, tlie character 

 of the biiikling is being improved, and the system of 

 fire-hrigades is becoming more cfticient. Wliatever 

 may be tlie frequency and extent of fires in future, 

 at tlie present rate, the wliole city is burned down 

 every 6G years, and as tliis is based upon the experience 

 of the hist thirteen years, a period during which fii-es 

 were less frequent than at any previous time. I think 

 it is not at all exagerating to say that in fi.mner times, 

 when fires were much more frequent, the districts in 

 Tokio, wdiere houses are built very closely together, and 

 in which fires are very frequent, the average age of 

 a house was about 7 years. The last winter was 

 remarkable in the frequency and extent of fires. If we take tlie last four fires 



of considerable extent during the last win- 

 ter, as exhibited in the subjoined table, the 

 total number of houses (a house or number 

 of houses or a part of a house occupied by 

 a single family is counted as one house") 

 burnt by these fires, of which only one can 

 be called a great fire according to the 

 meaning of the term used further on, is 

 26,200. The total niimUn- of houses in Tokio is something over 285,000 so 

 tliat these four fires alone destroyed about one eleventh jiart of the city in about two 

 months of the lire season. This will show that the assertion concerning the average 

 a"e of a house in the most populous parts of the city is by no means impossible. 



Date. 



Aix'iv. 



1808 



19,334 



]8i;'.i 



40. 030 



1870 



41,577 



1871 



28,280 



1872 



3'.I,00'J 



1873 



73,230 



1874 



12,104 



1875 



20,824 



1870 



124,750 



1877 



37,280 



1878 



5 7,8.') .J 



1879 



103,213 



1880 



08,084 



Total. 



077,007 



Mean, 



52,082 



Date. 



• 



1880— Dec. 30 



1881-Jiin. 20 



„ -I'Vh. 11 



„ '- .. 21 



Tutal. 



No. of lioiises 

 burned each time. 



2200 



15500 



7100 



1400 



20200 



The City of Tokio, formerly called Yedo, was founded by the first Shoguu 

 (the military ruler of Japan during the Feudal period) of the Tokugawa 

 dynasty in l.'JOO. The site of the city was a mere marshy plain willi fishing 

 villages scattered here and there, but being made the capital of the iShogun 

 Government, it grt'w in size very rapidly, and in a few years, beeami^ a city 

 of considerable si/.e. It early became a victim of the fiamesfor in less than 11 years 

 after its foundation, namely in 1601, the record handed down says tliat the city 

 of Yedo was burned entirely. Eighteen years after another great fire is recorded ; 

 and twenty-six years after the latter, the jiart of the city, where at jirescnt the 

 <_iin/.a street and otliers are found, was biu-nt, the fire spreading in a southern 

 direction, biu'iiing some eight thousand houses. These three fires are the only 

 ones recorded; the details, however are ucit known; hence they are not included 

 in the following table. Table A contains nearly all fires of considerable 

 magnitude that have occurred during the last 224 years, that is from 1657 to 

 188 1.'' From various records, written and printed, I have selected those fires, 

 whose length is greater than I') vho (one cho is about 360 feet) starting from 



