New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-11-16

of the homeless make but an insignificant
figure as Contrasted with those of Chicago
although they greatly exceed the similar
victims of any fire previously experienced
in this city. It is unfortunate, also, that
the blow falls at q season of the year the
most trying to those so suddenly turned out
of house and home-perhaps their all. The
cold OF @ New England winter will make
heavy demands upon the charitable in be-
half of these poor creatures EeKt in the
order of the needy will be the thousands
thrown out of employment and deprived,
for some time at least, of their USUAL means
OF earning their daily bread.
OF the losses sustained bv eur merchants,
who constituted the brain and heart OF this
most enterprsing city, now paralyzed, vho
can speak in adequate termss 1t is easy to
say that they will amount to nearly &w0
hundred millions of dollars, but figures can
not cover the case. In some respects our
suffering merchants are worse off than those
OF Chicago The latter city being a natural
and unavoidable centre of transportation,
her merchants found their business waiting
for them as soon and as fast as they could
resume It. Dut the business of Boston has
been largely built up in the face of the
sharpest competition, where lapse of tom
porary loss of advantages gained is much
more seriously felt. So far, however, as
our numerous manufacturing agencies are
S"ASS AASAAs lucy Gt40 4OI W Dbl u
ing trade of Chicago, and all that our meP-
chants OF that class want is place of shell
ter and they are ready for orders the same
as before.
We have yet to meet merchant Of any
class or business whatever who is at all
daunted by this visitation. One and all
face the calamity with serene spirit, with
a cool and steady determination, and
already with fertile and indomitable plans
for tha Tho nov cAo ho1
season, when the money market-especially
abroad-is in q disturbed condition, and
when the presidential year has exerted its
usual depressing effect upon business. How
different the prospect before these men
from what it was at the close of last week
what cherished calculations will have to be
given up-what sacrifices, unknown, per-
haps, since their early years of poverty,
and ten times more bitter now than then,
will have to be made! But they will be
made resolutely. The men to whom Bos
ton Is indebted in so great o degree for her
solid and enviable commercial standing,
whose names are heard with respect in both
hemispheres, are on their feet again to day,
and will soon be found steadily and rapidly
regaining their own and their city's posi-
tion. Let us all, in our several spheres. do
our parts as WELL and this prOVidential
event shall yet be found to have mitiga-
ti0ns, if not compensatiOns, not dreamed of
at drst.
The Boston Herald says:
1t is q strange fact that the progress of
the flames was against the wind. It is true
that the fire spread in all directions. more
or less, but beginning at the corner of
Kingston and Summer streets, it swept most
fercely up Franklin and Summer streets in
a western direction, and north toward State
street. The great wonder is that having
y,rD aI fo- "a
ages much farther. What prevented it
from sweeping down Washington street and
completely through the city to the Com
mOn it is impossible to tell The deAec-
ti0ns of the course of the flames here and
there are inexplicable. They seemed to
move IN obedience to no natural law, and
the great efforts of the fire department,
heavily reinforced from other places,
were futile in most cases to check them
The movement of the fire against the wind
possibly may be accounted tor by the calm
state of the air, which allowed of the forma-
ton OF atmospheric eddies, the undercur-
rents driving the flames backward. In the
Chicago as we'll as the Portland fire the
progress of the C0nhagration was with the
wind, and the rapidity OF its march was in
creased by blazing brands borne far in ad-
vance Of the main body of the fire. In those
hreS also the flames swept across wide |
streets, which scarcely arrested their pro-
gress. Here the advance was much less
rapid, though apparently as irresistible. and |
the width Of a street sometimes checked |
the flames more than all the water thrown |
upon them.
We find, upon review Of the burned |
district, that the heart Of the most substan-
tial part of the city is destroyed. Those |
elegant granite blocks. of stores on Frank |
lin, DeV0nehiTe, Summer, Pearl, High, |
Arch, Hawiey, Congress, Federal and Pur- |
chase streets, which were the pride of the |
city, are all in ruins. Franklin street, |
which was, perhaps, the most uniformly |
elegant and substantial business street in
the city, presents the most complete picture |
OF deso!ation The once massive walls have
tumbled into sbapeless heaps. Every par
ticle Of wood is eaten out, and the stones
and bricks are crumbled into dust. Taking
tho burnt district as it appears on map OF |
the city, and comparing it with the size of |
the Common on the same map, we Judge it's
area to be between 100 and l25 acres.
The fire yields lessons upon the structure
Of buildings which capitalists will be blind |
not to need. One point seems to be settled, |
and that is that the erection of Mansard |
roofs, constructed largely Of wood, on the |
top of lofty buildings of five or six stories, |
invites disasters like that which has fallen
upon our city. In nearly every step of the |
progress of the fire last night the roofs |
caught first, proved to be highly inhamma-
BILE, and were generally SO high that streams
Of water directed upon them did not reach |
The flames in full force, but were converted |
into spray by the wind; in that form being |
to the intense heat, the water was
resolved into its elementary gases, as it is
by passing it through superheated tube,
and served to increase rather than to abate
,ho fury of the flames:
Again, IL appears that there we're some
walls which offered q more or less efficient |
obstacle to the fire. We must attribute the
of the flames to the existing
limits to such walls as much as any other
agency. There is little doubt that the sub
'tantial Transcript building, which suffered
10 severely itself, and the massive walls of
he new postoftice were instrumental in
checking the progress of the fire on the
Washington street side. This leads us to
believe that there is still some virtue in
leavy walls, in spite of the destruction of
10 many of them here and in Chicago Bos-
0n has sustained a terrible blow. Whether
he actual property destroyed was one hun
lred or two hundred millions (the best esti-
nate we have is $l25, ,000,0 ,000), the largest
md best part Of the business section of the
:ity lies in smouldering ruins. The com-
nercial enterprise, nearly allied to impor-
ant manufacturing interests throughout
New England, upon which the wealth and
Ulture Of Boston was so largely founded,
las had fearful shock. The growth of
he city. never so rapid, perhaps, as within
he last five years, has received serious