The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1873-08-11
GkpGatelligtntnr.
Floating Fire Traps.

There is one truth, enforced by tht
burning OF the WswasSet, and By
many worse disasters in the past, thA
must at last arrest public attention. It ID
that the only prevention against such oC
currenccs Is to be found in the construc
lion OF steamers that will not burn. g.
long as they are mere tinder boat
of light wood covered with 'highl!
iDh4mmable paint and varnish, 81
long must these horrors from burn
ing vessels continue TO repeat them
selves. No human precautions agains
careless handling Of fire can protect lit'
on American steamers as they are nov
built. By some accident or inadvertenc'
tho fire on one Of them gets out OF ID
proper bounds. Itislike the firing Of q
magazine. The flames run like Lightning
along the surfaces that seem prepared ex-
pressly to feed them, and the fragile wood
work is roaring furnace, the vessel
doomed aud the terror.stricken passen-
gers driven into thewater, before there il
time To even snatch a life preserVer.
Carelessness In the handling of fire is In
evitsble. Nothing can eftsctually pre-
vent il; and there Is an average ol
chances, always to be depended on,
by which vessels are endangered
from this source. The rational thing to
do, and the only thing which can afford
adequate security Against the Conse'
uucnces Of this careltssness, Is to construct
vessels that shall be fire.proof-or, II not
absolutely proof against fire, vessels that
will offer such resistance 10 fire as will
afford time and opportunity toextinguish
it with the aid Of proper apparatus. The
Undertook style oI building in which
American cities have been constructed
has cost hundreds Of millions in the past
lew years, and Is inhicting on tho country
II steady and continuous loss esti'
mated al half q million dollars
day. Our people are beginning family
to realize TINT the remedy Is not in costly
fire departments but 10 more substantial
style of construction. 30 long as houses
are built to flash at the first touch of'hre,
SO long the daily report oI destructive
CONGREGATIONS may be expected. But
people are finding out that they must
build houses that will not burn; and some
Ielerence to this idea is found in the re-
construction OF Chicago and Boston. But
it does not yet seem to have dAwned on
tue public that II is worth while TO guard
lite and property on water in the same
way. A steamer, with It's precious
human cargo, is burned up. The reading
public Is dreadIully shocked. An inves'
ligation follows and It appears somebody
was to blame for starting the fire; but 1t
never occurs TO anybody that the builders
Of the vessel were to blame in construct
inv a shell that the flames would lick up
with the swiLtness Oi the wind; or the
Government authorities, which allow such
floating flrO.traps to take aboard their
hundreds of passengers and hang all their
lives on the single chance OF an overturn'
cd lamp or spark from the furnace.
Il is certainly possible to build steamers
that will otter more resistance to fire than
those that now ply our rivers and bays
and until some intelligent effort Is made
to substitute such vessels for the tinder'
boats to which thousands Of lives are
now daily entrusted, We may expect no
reduction in the average recurrence OF
such horrors as those detailed in our news
colums this morning.