77 



According to the Fire Insurance Conimissiou of tlic. Treasury (tlnnuy;!! whose 

 kindness, I obtaiueil the tahle giving tlie areas oi burnt liouses for last II? years) 

 the average vahie of one tsubo (about bix feet squarel of a liouse is about 30 yen 

 (a gold yen=about a dollar) and for the last 13 yeirs, an average of 52,000 

 tsubo of houses has been bunit every year iiial<iiig the total annual loss 

 1,560,000 yen. This is an average of a period Icnown to ha\e been exception- 

 ally free from fires ; and besides, this includes uotliing but liousus. If we were to 

 include all items of loss direct and indirect, it can not be less than 3,000,000 yen 

 every year. The loss of houses, and other properly by lire is ivloss alsolute in 

 all senses, a loss not only to the city, but to the general coinintuiity. If we can 

 absolutely prevent tires by spending 3 million yen every yeai-, it would be a gain to 

 the country; but I think, a far smaller amount would be quite sufficient to 

 organize a system of fire brigades, that would absolutely prevent any fires of 

 great extent. If the people of Tokio were willing to spend ^j^ of the total 

 annual loss at present sustained it would be more than enough for the purpose. 



Finally, an estimate of tlie number of times the city has been burnt 

 completely during the last "224 years, based upon the foregoing tacts, may be of in- 

 terest. We have the four great fires diu-ing the last 13 year, the total length of 

 which is SQuho. During this jieriod, the area of houst^s destroyed by all fires is 

 G77,0G7 tsitlo. The average total area of houses during the last 224years mu.=t have 

 been about double the i)resent area or about 0,000,000 tsuloj and the total Icnglh 

 of 03 great fires is 3234 cho : so that we may have the jiroportion ; — SO : ()77,0G7 

 :: 3,234 :2'J,G23,(Jör(. Dividing tiiis total area of the byrnt houses during the 

 last 224 yeai-s, by 0,000,000 imtho^ we get the number required to be 4.4 

 that is, the city has been burnt I'vv.vy 50 years, which' is not \orv far from tlut 

 estimate, made in the beginning of this paper. 



