Daily globe., 1881-12-11
PERILs OF FLOUR MILLS.
The Insurance People Beginning to BE
Harmed.
CChicago Times, Dec. 10. !

alarmed.
[Chicago Times, Dee. 10.1
A reporter OF the Times, on his rounds
through La Salle street. found that the occu-
pants of the general offices of the insurance
companies in that thoroughfare were cousld-
erably exercised over the reports of the great
fires which occurred within the past week
among the Touring mills at Minneapolis. The
detailed reports of the losses and insurance
involved which have come to hand through
the mails only serve to corroborate the
telegraphic reports to the Times the night of
the disaster. 1t would appear that history
repeats itself in such catastrophes as well as
other matters, as it is not long ago that
nearly the whole milling interest at
that enterprising city was involved in
ruin by explosion, one mill following an
other, in quick succession, like a row of
torpedOes, until the whole mill district was
one heap of ruined patent-four factories. It
is not surprising that the insurance managers,
whose companies are again called upon
to pay enormous losses at Minneap-
oils are, as one of the most prom
inent OF them expressed it, s'overcome with
disgust, and satisfied that there is but little real
difference between the fire hazard of modern
patent-four factory or fouring-milI and a
insured match factory for ten years, and had
now received premium enough to pay a total
loss and yet have some profit left, but on
fouring-mills he didn't believe any insurance
company, large or small, had made cent
of profit for ten years past.
The insurance involved in the last fire. on
which total losses are claimed, amounts to
over S25OOOO, and yet the mills destroyed
were among the smaller ones and bear no
comparison to those of mammoth size such
as Washburn ga" and ''B," and several 9TH
ers of at least three times the capacity of the
largest one destroyed Letters from
Minneapolis giving interviews with
Chief Bracket, of the fire department
of that city, reveal some curious facts
which insurance managers in this city do not
fully comprehend. As an instance, he is
quoted as stating that can explosion in the
Minneapolis mills was the very last thing he
thought possible would occur" He was
quite certain that there was No fire in the mill
at the time of its explosion, and
it is said that this statement is
borne out by every other member of
the fire department with whom the interviewer
had conversed. Insurance managers here say,
after the disastrous explosions of about two
years ago, they wonder what Chief Brackett
or any other reading man could have expected
if not an explosion. Insurance men say that
it is wonderful how soon such an occurrence,
involving large loss of life and over a million
dollars in cash, can be forgotten; and
judging from the preparations which
they are making to cut off this class of risks,
as too hazardous to insure, they do not pro-
pose to be caught mapping again in the same
way. FIGURING mills, they say, must 60 in
the list with glucose works, which the great
majority OF fire insurance companies (since
the remarkable mortality in this class within
the last few years. do not insure at any price.
The question of increased fire hazard as a
direct result Of the modern plan of manufact-
uring patent flour is one which the average
insurance agent acknowledges he is unable to
master or estimate, and the verdict appears to
be that the rates, if double what are now paid,
would not compensate the insurers. Several
large agency companies put Touring mills
on their prohibited list after the former
great explosive fires in Minneapolis,
and saved thousands of dollars by
it. Several others are now following in their
lead. Others will cut the lines down to one
third the amount they have been writing, and
take only the very best risks with great eau
ton. 1t would appear to be question, there
fore, for the Northwestern Millers' association
to consider at its next session: What shall
we do to be saved from explosion?