The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-10-21 00:00:00

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THE FIRE AT CHICAGO.

The partial ilestrurtion of Chicago and other ad-
jaeimt towns and villages has been the means of sud-
denly suspending the holidays and ti-as els to England
of many Americans, who are rapidly hurrying back to
their own country. The Cunard Royal mail steamer
Chiso, which sailed froui Liverpool last Saturday,
carried many more passengers than were anticipated,
several taking berths at the last moment. The China
also took out gratuitously several packages intended
for the benefit of the Chicago sufferers, an act of
liberality which will be followed by the owners and
managers of all the other large ocean steamers trading
between the Mersey and the northern ports of the
United States.

The Eeononti.if says :
" The losses by the great tire which has nearly
destroyed Chicago are probably very much exaggerated,
but the most rubel' reckoning must still yield a very high
figure. The telegrams tells us that 100,000 people have
been burnt out --that is, about the 30th part of the
population of London -and this may lead no to some
notion of what the loss must be. The rental of London
is nearly £30,000,0110, and of a 30th part £1,000,000,
which we may, perhaps, safely assume as the minimum
rental of the real property destroyed in Chieztgo, the
destruction having been largely in the business part
of the city, whereas the above 30 millions for London
include the less valuable suburbs. At from ten to 15
years' purehase. again, the million of rental worth! repro.
sent a capital of front £10,000,000 tnt t 15,000,000. This
would be the cattle of the house property destroyed ;
and the contents of the houses, including stock in
trade, would not probably, judging by our own ex.
rerience of the tire insurance duty, come to any more.
l'he total tom, supposing there is no material salvage
from the tire, may thus be between r 20,000,000 and
U 30,000,000, the latest estimates from New York, we
observe, giving even smaller figures. Even as thus re-
duced the loss is very serious, and is quite likely to
cause some perturbation. The insurance companies
here are arranging to pay at once what they owe - -
in the case of the North 'British and Mercantile Assur-
ance company alone, over £400,000 - and the trans-
mission of such large new sums, at a time when we
are likely to pay America a great deal, most contri-
bute to derange the exchanges. The American insur-
ance companies lutist res,rrt tt the sale of securities,
which will also tend to draw money front this side, a
surplus in the New York market naturally main.; an
overflow to Eungie. Altogether a soil-n payment of
probably front £lll,ooo,(*tttr £15,000,000 in New York
is likely to affect UN here, when we remember especi-
ally the engagements which have been entered into in
connexion with the Funding Loan. By itself, even
the Chicago disaster would probably have caused little
disturbance, but coming at the time it does, it may be
more than enough to turn a doubtful balance."

The L ire 'vont Albion says
"The tire in Chicago, with its terrible results, has
naturally attracted attention to the position of such of
the English offices as, has tug made the deposit required
by the State of Illinois, have been doing business there.
The Royal is said to escape with some I:20,000 of loss.
The Liverpool and Loin and Globe and the North
British and Mercantile •Atices have sustained losses to
the amount of £400,000 each. The North British and
Mercantile, with hot haste, telegraph, 'Pay ttromptly ;
draw at sight for V-100,000.' The Liverpool and London
and Globe, having already in the States for the pur-
pose ot meeting such catastrophes about I:600,000,
Icive authorised their Bmusl in New York to draw
for C 21.10,100 more if need be, in order that no incon-
venience or delay may be experienced in the settlement
of claims In them. Both e.snpanies appear to be in a
very- strong position, the income of the North British
:ind Mercantile from fire premiums in 1870 having
Is•en £ri.10,04)0, tuul their reserve C 7.2.2.000; while that
of the Liverpool and London and tithe was vid,ooo,
with reserve of £L170,000. It is remarkable that the
position of both companies in the State f Illinois ap-
pears, by the report of the Auditor of Public Accounts,
dated I•2th of December, 1870, bt lie very much the
sante - namely, suni insured, about 7,000,000 (Ws.;
premiums received, 78,000 dok ; and the loss sus-
tained by both, £400.000, As stated above. We think
we may congratulate the proprietors and constituents
of both companies on their very satisfactory condition
after this tremendous loss has been paid."

BADEN BADEN, Oct. 15.

The Empress Ammeta has informed the Chicago
Tlelief Committee of lterlin that, in grateful recollec-
tion 44 the sump:olly shown Ly Amerita during the
late war, 1,000 ii li. has been placed to their aetmunt
for the butfizers through the tire at Chicago.

On 'he subject I,f the cause of the fire at Chicago,
Mr. James 0. Ifeyworth, Pewtree, West Derby,
liverp, 0, I, writes:—

As the holder of houses In Chicago, and having my own
family residence situate on Michigan-avenue In that town,
while deeply feeling the loss experienced by many individuals
and by the world's inditic ccoimmy, I am thoommlily asto-
II that in all the reports or letters about that devastat-
ing tire, the main cause of its spreadinG all raphlly so
great an extent of ground (some three or four square miles in
extent, destroying somel2,ooo buildings) has, like many other
great, but unseen and unnoticed, causes, been entirely over-
looked, while the effect or result is even to be heard from the
mouths of children.
. . . .

So logs the life and tide of this world, along through plea-
sure or woe—a scene of stumbling luck inconsistent a ith the
pression of the world's own faultlessly-measured steps
through space thickly studded with serious obstacles. Man's
reason i often faulty, being finite—G.4's never : so being
inlinite, so man's reason must be educated by disappoint-
ments and catastrophes, alla sure progress only secured by
discovering the causes of catastrophes and avoiding them in
the future.

We naturally exclaim, could a fire, in this fig° of large
stone chuiThes. walls. and brick houses, 'to., as rep all be-
fore at? Surely it must have been divert.' here and there
In Its terrible path of destruction by stone and mortar? Such
would happen in any English town, but the secret of Chi-
cagn's disaster, actually within her own established free
limits, where wooden houses are prohibited being built by
law, lay in the almost universal absence of slate roofs.
flawing to the great expense of slates, caused by tariffs in
favour of some miserable specimens of slate quarries in the
State of Pennsylvania, we are, in fact, compelled to roof mar
houses either with wooden shingles or with tar felt paper,
swabbed over with melted pitch, and then strewn over with
small gravel.

The heat of the sun causes the gravel in many places to
sink into this pitch and expose it, as also where the paper
In turned up against the interior of the outside walls, which
always exceed the height of such a kind of nearly level roof
as uied to be the ease with the roofs if old Jerusalem, which
were more safely paved with stone slabs in those ancient
days of careful building and small progress. In Chicago,
therefore, how hopeless when once a fire had got beyond the
Immediate control of the tire department to expect that a
stone or brick building would stop or divert the raging
flames, while their almost flat roofs of wood and pitch were
ready to catch the falling embers, carried along iml fanned
into !fames by a tierce and unrelenting gale. My property
being on Michigan-avenue, just south of Twelfth-street, is
outside the precincts of the late great fire, for which I ant
very thankful, and Ido not think Chicago will remain long
In ashes.

It is a singular fact that only eight days before the
great Chicago lire one of the largest warehouses in that
city, described as " the Great Burlington Warehouse,"
was destroyed with all its contents, the total loss being
estimated at 1450,090 dollars. The scene seems to have
been a sort of anticipatory picture of the conflagration
which was about to swallow up such a vast accumula-
tion of wealth.