Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-06-25
a little ahead-they intend to continue
their open and undisguised reputation OF
Democracy. tits we'll"
THE c0NsTANTYNOPLE FIRE.

THE CONSTANTINOPLE FIRE.
Late European papers bring full particulars
of the great fire at Constantinople. From an
article in the London Telegraph we copy the
/ following;
We suppose that even in Pera and Stam-
,orl there has occurred no such fire as the
present since the great confagration of the
ID of August, 1881, when 1000 people were
rendered houseles and old Pera was all but
utterly annihilated. The Pera made familiar
10 so many eyes by the Crimean war was the
half-fedged and rather dirty phGnix which
rose from the ashes of that great bonfire. The
Embassy House consumed sprang also from
the ruins of that prodigious blaze, and not
only did it cost f100,0 600 to build, but it has
been like a running sore ever since in esti-
mates for ''repairs and improvements" 1t
is ian ill fire which roasts no mans chest
nuts" as Turks say; and the British taxpay-
er, with Mr. Ayrton to back him up, may Sc
cretly rejoice that the never-tO- be finished
palace of the English Elchee is ''gone to
Jehannum' at last.
One main cause of these disastrous occur
ences at Constantinople is as everybody
knows. the practice of building houses of
wood The Turk is lazy to degree almost
unimagnatle in our busy West. lie has
plenty of fine quarries near Stamboul, but he
does not care to work them, or to build the
magnificent terraces of mosque and bazaar
which ought to rise, and were meant to rise,
on either side of the Bosphorus. Even among
those buildings and abodes in the various re-
gions of the squalid capital which are con-
structed of stone, the greater part OF them
were put together with masonry and rubble
filched from the old and splendid labors of
Latin. Greek and Ottoman rulers and citizens
board or joist is easier to cut, If not
cheaper to buy, than block of stone or mar
Bile: so, as fast as the flames clear the ground
for him. and offer new chance. the Turk
runs up the same old fashioned weather.
boarded residences, with strips of gay paint
along the front, making the street look ike
child's toy city; and then he settles in again
till Allah and his neighbors are pleased once
more to burn him out. But wood is not the
only cause that prcdisposes Constantinople
and its quarters to such serious disasters.
Pera contained many well built stone and
stucco houses, and a street of quite European
appearance-the Grsnde Rou; while the en-
bassies and public buildings which have sue
cumbed were in many cases perfect palaces,
built without regard to cost, and proof against
ANYTHING short of the sea of fire which must
have rolled against them from the mass OF
mean abodes burning up the side of the hill.
One great aid to such catastrophe is the
dryness which prevails in Stamboul at this
time of the year; the excessive heat parches
everything, and makes everything like finder.
As to the sources of fire, the pans of lighted
charcoal everywhere burning without a cover
the innumerabIe .'kebahtroughs. and the
pipes forever putting with a great lump of
glowing tobacco and fire-ball upon them,
make the origin of contiagration ineligible
enough. Again, as to its water supply, Con-
stantinople is most imperfectly provided
The Turks catch the surface drainage in the
adjacent valleys by means of reservoirs, and
collect little more from the rains into the
old cisterns dug under the town by the Byzan-
tine Emperors but in the dry season this is
very insufficient quantity, and the mosques,
by a special law, have the first and best of
what then dribbles down by the acqueducts.
The rest of the thirsty capital is watered by
carriers, who bring skins upon their backs
from Scutari and Captain Shaw, if he were
in charge of the fire brigade, would probably
go mad from something the very reverse of
hydrophobia. Lastly, at this time of the
year the Etesian winds are always blowing
from the Black Sea down the Bosphorus,
ready to fan into fury any little blaze which
may break forth. 1t will thus be seen, that
without attributing any malignant practices
to Dns or Giaours, all the conditions of these
melancholy accidents are carefully provided
by nature and man between them