Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-04-13
TO BE ROASTED ALIVE.
A TERRIBLE FATE IN STORE FOR
JEWELLERS IN FLATS.


The Warning Give1fNew Workers by the
Recent Fire-A Rage for Sealing Wax
The Cheap Cabs-A Journalists Lucky
Find-Dr. Newman's COurse-A Mann
moth New Hotel.
Correspondence of tie Morning NeaCc.
NEW YORK, April 10.-The burning of
| the st. Georges flats has caused wide
/ spread uneasiness among the thousands
of inmates of apartment houses. The
building held the reputation of being fire.
| proof, and yet it burned like so much tin
der. Had the fire occurred at night the
loss of life would have been great. As it
was, there were several narrow escapes.
There are doubtless scores of other apart
ment houses in the city no better pro-
/ tected against fire than was the St.
George, and it is only a question of time,
apparently, when a wholesale roasting of
human beings will take place which will
till the city with horror.
The pillaging which followed the fire,
and by which much valuable property
which the flames had spared was lost,
is IN one sense a greater calamity than
the fire itself. For there is good reason
to suspect that the stealing was done by
tiremen, ard If the firemen are not to be
trusted, hOuse-hOlders will hereafter not
summon them in case Of fire until the
last moment after they nave tried in vain
to put out the fire without their help, and
a serious cOnt1agratiOn will result which,
were the tiremen summoned Immediately,
would be avoided.
= One of the sufferers by the St. George
disaster, by the way, is a faithful follower
of Roscoe Cnkling-Timothy Griffith,
formerly of Oneida county. He is clerk
in the United States District Court through
the favor of his patron.
Speaking of badly constructed flats,
New York has been called the ughest city
in the world, and it doubtless is the
ugliest Of all the cities large enough and
rich enough to devote money and space to
buildings with any pretensiOns to archi-
tectural design. What buildings we have
of the sort, both public and private, are,
with few exceptions, built on wrong prin-
ciples. The post office, with its mahsard
roof, surmOunting Greek facade. is an
eyesore in lower Broadway, and William
III. Vanderbilts mansion, although it
must have cost two months income of
the owner, is eXteriorly almost the ugliest
structure in upper Fifth avenue.
But it is a mOnOtOny of its rows OF
brOwn-stOne houses, with their square
doors and windows, each the duplicate Of
the other, that renders New York the
uSlleSb ClIl III Ili6 WOIlus AlJuOu8l O1
late years there has been an attempt made
to break this ugly uniformity, and many
structures of varied, if not always correct
designs, have been erected in different
parts Of the town, yet a parsimOniOus
spirit is so continually displaced in the
construction of buildings on the best
streets that the city viii not for many
generations be redeemed from its reputa-
tiOn for ugliness.
For pNamOIp a structure has racanfIv
been erected at Broadway and Seven
teenth streets on UniOA square, one of the
most conspicuous sites in the city, which
not only has little architectural merit,
but is manifestly built Of comparatively
cheap material. The owner had it in his
power with such a commanding situation
to have built structure that would have
been an ornament to the city, but he
chose to earn high rent with the smallest
possible expenditure of capital.
THE BUILDING, HOWEVER, WHICH OF
ALL OTHERS
illustrates the spirit of parsimony that
renders New York the ugliest city in the
world, and which has inspired this dia-
tribe, is now in course of erection at
Broadway and Bleecker street. Although
it is intended for a store, it is built of
brick coarse and cheap enough for a fac
! tory. To say that it resent bles a barracks
ordinarily considered a dismally plain
| structure. The building, indeed, is so
cheap and ugly that one sighs for a law
which will prohibit the erection of similar
| structures on such streets as Broadway.
! The chief business street of the chief city
on the continent should be protected from
| the parsimOny which would fill it with
! eyesores. The law giving the Mayor the
sole power of appointment to OfficeIshOuld
also have empowered him to prohibit the
! erection of cheap and unarchitectural
| structures on the principal streets !
| In spite of the ridicule which has been
! thrown upon it, the fashion of using
sealing wax to close envelopes in place
of gum-arabic, as our grandfathers and
| grandmothers did, is spreading. All
| letters one now receives from persons "in
sOciety'' are sealed with wax in the old
style, and family heIrlooms in the shape
Of seals are being put to their former
familiar use to which they have long been
unaccustOmed. The same fashion pre-
scrlbes the use of the prefix ''for'' before
and little above PERSONS name on the
address of Il letter. Thus, for example,
! the address should read: