S4 
House & Garden 
CUnione Safeties 
ESTABLISHED \ & 7 & 
ANTIQUES-FINE FURNITURE—OB JETS d’ART 
“The Four Seasons,” done in Carrara marble. Bronze 
Base, by a famous Italian Sculptor. Latin inscription, 
from Virgil, translated, reads: “A spirit within sustains, 
and the mind pervading its members moves the whole mass 
with its mighty frame.” 38} 2 in. high, 34 in. wide, 
16 M in. deep. 
IV/TANY of the beautiful homes and 
gardens of America have been en¬ 
riched by rare pieces from the Aimone 
Galleries. The collection is always 
changing. Annual pilgrimages to the 
Old World keep it ever new. When you 
are in New York, come to these Galleries 
as you would to a museum, with the same 
anticipation of delight. The present 
collection of antiques, Italian marbles, 
terra cottas and objets dart, invites 
the largest expectancy. It is eloquent 
testimony to a 43-year-old service 
which has no peer in America to-day. 
ciorUj-Uvcr (Scot cloiiy-ruatfi 
BETWEEN MADISON <3nct PARK 
NEW YORK CITY 
The Home Fire Hazard 
{Continued from page 82) 
contains much more than enough oil. 
A dirty lamp containing only a little 
oil is unsafe. 
Do not use paper or decorative shades 
of inflammable material on lamps or 
electric light bulbs. 
Electricity is a hidden hazard and 
extends throughout the wire system in 
a building. Be sure it is safely in¬ 
stalled, and have the system carefully 
inspected and approved by a recognized 
electrical inspector. Many fires are due 
to defective electric wiring. Do not de¬ 
stroy the insulation on electric light, fan 
or heater wires by hanging them on 
hooks or nails. Immediately repair or 
replace any defective switches, fuses, 
sockets, etc. A fuse is the “safety valve” 
of an electric system, and should never 
be replaced by one of larger size or 
any other material. 
Before attaching electric irons, va¬ 
cuum cleaners, cooking utensils or any 
other electrical device to your lighting 
circuits or sockets, consult an electrician 
as to the ability of your wiring to with¬ 
stand this additional load. Electric wir¬ 
ing systems are designed to carry only a 
certain current, and if overloaded may 
cause fires. Numerous fires have been 
caused by leaving electric irons with the 
current on. Disconnect them immedi¬ 
ately when through using. 
Heating and Garage Hazards 
Coal and kindling should preferably 
be kept within a brick or stone enclosure 
and not stored against frame partitions 
nor directly against walls of boiler or 
furnace. It is well to see that the gar¬ 
den hose may be attached to the kitchen 
faucet. 
Never allow open flame lights in a 
garage. When filling the tank, run the 
auto outside, so that gasoline vapors 
will dissipate. 
Do not keep quantities of gasoline or 
calcium carbide inside of garage or 
dwelling. An approved underground 
storage tank is the safest method for 
keeping gasoline. 
A metal waste can should be located 
at a convenient place outside the garage 
for all waste and greasy rags. Burn 
these every week. Never use sawdust 
or shavings to absorb grease and oil. 
Scrub floor (if wooden) occasionally 
with hot water and lye. 
The use of gasoline for cleaning parts 
of the automobile in the garage is a 
dangerous thing. 
The garage should not be heated by 
means of stove or open fire of any kind, 
unless same is isolated in another room 
so that the gasoline vapors of garage 
cannot possibly get to it. Gasoline 
vapor travels. Being heavier than air, 
it seeks low levels. Ventilation should 
be arranged to take care of vapors col¬ 
lecting near the floor. 
Keep an approved fire extinguisher 
and a pail of sand in garage. Water 
thrown on burning gasoline merely 
serves to spread it. 
In many cases water will quench fire 
But in the case of oils, alcohol and other 
volatile liquids and grease fires water 
simply spreads the fire and you are in 
more trouble than you were at first. 
The Big Eight 
The eight firemakers in the order of 
their devastating power are as follows: 
Electrical, due to carelessness and lack 
of proper inspection; matches and 
smoking; defective chimneys and flues; 
stoves, furnaces, pipings and boilers; 
spontaneous combustion; sparks on 
roofs, and petroleum and its products. 
From 1915 to 1919 the value of fires 
from these causes aggregated $1,416,- 
375,845. Is it any wonder that there is 
now agitation all over the United States 
to have at least thirty minutes given 
each week to the study of fire preven¬ 
tion? Saving the home is better even 
than building more homes. 
Extinguishers 
Every home, of course, should be 
equipped with the best possible extin¬ 
guisher. There are any number of 
them on the market. Do you know of 
many motorists who refuse the call of 
the extinguisher? There are not many 
who have not one in their car, yet there 
are few homes with them. Large homes 
should have one on every floor. Small 
homes, even if they have not enough foot¬ 
age to lower their insurance rates, should 
have them to reduce the fire hazard. 
What kind should the householder 
buy? The chief thing here is to buy 
one that has no fancy method of opera¬ 
tion, that simply by inverting the con¬ 
tainer, turns on a forceful stream; light 
as possible in weight, not over 25 pounds 
and preferably about 12, so that a 
woman can use it. Right here it is 
interesting to note that The Fireman’s 
Herald reports that women daily put 
out more fires and obviate large con¬ 
flagrations than men; that were it not 
for the fact that women put out so 
many, the fire peril would have been 
far greater. 
Other things that we must demand in 
the extinguisher is that it must have at 
least a stream of 20' long; that there 
must be no suffocating fumes from the 
chemical’s contact with the fire; that 
the chemical must be as nearly stain- 
proof as possible so that in a small fire 
the room is not unnecessarily disfigured. 
The chemical must not freeze readily, at 
least not above 27 or 28 degrees Fah¬ 
renheit. 
There is one extinguisher on the mar¬ 
ket today that is gaining mightily in 
favor, because it spreads a foam over 
the fire and cuts off the oxygen, and 
the laying of the foam prevents a flash¬ 
back when the fire is nearly out. At 
first this was used in the extinguishing 
of oil fires, the heaviest and most diffi¬ 
cult of all fires to put out. For example, 
where a chemical engine took an hour 
to do the trick this foam type took a 
few minutes. 
This has the added power of expand¬ 
ing over eight times its bulk in the con¬ 
tainer when released, so that if the house 
type is used the container need not be 
over 3/1 gallon and you really have about 
six gallons of material for the fire. This 
does no more damage to draperies than 
would water. It does not injure cot¬ 
tons or wools and does not penetrate 
fabrics as many other chemicals do. If 
it gets on one’s clothes it is easily 
brushed off after it dries. On polished 
and varnished furniture it has no effect 
and is easily washed off. 
Service 
Reliable firms will always tell you 
correctly what kind of an extinguisher 
to buy for your particular purpose. 
They will, too, in compliance with the 
Board of Underwriters’ rulings, watch 
the apparatus once a year and recharge 
if necessary. Actually they don’t al¬ 
ways need it, but it is a wise ruling by 
the board. 
There are some extinguishers excel¬ 
lent for outdoors, motor boating, etc., 
but which indoors are apt to give off 
suffocating fumes. 
There are extinguishers of large ca¬ 
pacity on wheels for large homes and 
large estates. These are a great insur¬ 
ance against fire. They are built on 
narrow gauge wheels for rolling on 
floors in the house and heavier con¬ 
struction for outdoor use. Many big 
estates use these little two wheelers, as 
they are fire departments in themselves. 
{Continued on page 86) 
