The New York herald., 1878-02-24
Building and Blasting.

A lew days ago the wife and daughter OF
gentleman residing at Harlem were sitting
sewing in room on the second story OF
their house when they were suddenly
thrown to the floor by n violent shock, and
the bricks and mortar from the wall came
tumbling into the room, causing havoc
among the furniture. When the ladies re-
covered from their terror it was found that
piece of rock weighing three thousand
pounds, which had been thrown up by q
blast on an adjoining lot, had struck the
wall Of the house, making hole six feet by
three, but had fortunately exhausted it's
power and dropped outside instead of going
clean through into the apartment. Yester-
day, while number OF laborers were at
work on row of houses in the course of
construction on Lexington avenue, between
Ninety fourth and Ninety fifth Streets the
end building suddenly fell inward, the
beams giving way through their own weight,
and two men were buried under the rdins
and seriously injured-one, it may be,
fatally-while several others were more or
less hurt.
In the first of these cases the blasting
contractor insisted that the blast had been
''fully protected in accordance with law" If
the "full protection" afforded by the law au-
thorizes blast in public thoroughfare and
in lots adjoining occupied residences power
full enough to hurl rock weighing three
thousand pounds as high az the second story
of a building, with sufficient force to drive
a hole measuring six feet by three through
q brick wall, then the law should certainly
be altered. Some little consideration is due
to the lives and property of the people, al
though no such idea seems to enter the
heads of blasting contractors. If the rock
had passed clear through the wall of the
Harlem house and landed on the heads of
the lady and her daughter it would have
been very little consolation to know that
the blast had been ''fully protected in
accordance with the law" The truth is
that blasting contractors, being anxious to
realize as much as they can our of job,
make as few drills as possible and put in
blasts 80 heavy as to endanger the lives of
passers-by and the lives and property of all
who live in the immediate neighborhood.
Drilling takes time and costs money, and if
contractors would make more drills and
use less powder they would not secure so
much profit, but they would render acci-
dents and loss of life less likely, and this
would lie of some advantage to the public.
It was absurd to pretend that the law can
authorize such an explosion as that at Har-
lem. 1t was still more absurd to fine the
contractor twenty-five dollars, because if he
obeyed the law he was not liable to any fine
at all, and if he violated the law his reck-
less, wicked disregard of the public safety
should have been much more severely pun
ished.
We are now told that the contractors who
are putting up the Lexington avenue shells
have complied with the law in every
possible particular. If, under the present
Building act, houses can be erected the
walls of which can be SO weakened and
undermined by few hours rain as to be
unable to sustain the weight of the beams,
then we certainly need new legislation on
the subject. We venture to suggest, how
ever, that the law on examination will be
found not to authorize the erection of any
such cruel traps for human life. At all
events very thorough investigation of the
accident should be made. We have Build
ing Department., and if it is to be of any use
at all it must be in rendering the erection
of such unsafe buildings and the occurrence
of such accidents as that OF yesterday inl-
possible. Let it be seen whether the con-
tractors have, in this instance, disregarded
the law. If they have, then no such
ridiculously inadequate penalty as was
imposed upon the Harlem blaster will
satisfy the justice of the case Men have
no right, for the sake Of unduly increasing
their own profits, TO trife with human life,
and to risk the widespread misery and suf-
fering too often resulting from such greed.
PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE.