The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-24
WOODEN SUBURBS,
A Menace to Safety and a Flemish to
 the View.

Stdntlal structures or brlCk are con- fined to cities, and in the cities confined often to somewhat narrow limits, In small towns and villages and in the suburbs of the cities construction is al- most universally of wood. The object of this paper is to show that this Is an anomaly for such a land as ours and such time and that it is an evil whose effects are far-reaching and full of baneful possibilities
 To educate the people at large to higher standards is always a long and laborious process. To educate the ma jority to appreciate that it is to their own advantage to build substantially Is also matter of time and patience. Any reform must begin with the educa- ted minority, and they must make their first appeal to the common-sense of the people. 1t is useless to try to in fluence first those in authority and the makers of our laws. They are practi- cally powerless. We live in a country which we call free, and pride ourselves, perhaps without warrant, because laws cannot be made and crammed down our threats, even if 1t be for our own good. So, even if we reach those in power and they have the knowledge and the will to make good and wise laws, they can not do so unless they are backed by the moral support of the people
 The evil is threefold. There is first the great menace of fire, which threat ems the lives and property of the thou sands who live in these wooden build ings, and threatens also the city itself, which, if any one of the thickly settled suburbs got to burning fiercely, could hardly be saved. Second there is the hideous unsightliness; nothing worse can be imagined than the general as- pect of these congregations of build- ings, which both seem and are f1imsy in construction, which give scope to every vagary of owner and painter in that most difficult art, the use of color, and which are so huddled together as quite to destroy all natural beauties and be an absolute blot on the land Third, there is false economy, for these wood- en buildings are cheaper only in their first outlay, saving soon offset by re- pairs and deterioration.
 The causes which have produced the existing conditions are not far to seek. When the average man turns his atten- ton to the building of home in the country or in the suburbs of town his first and natural idea of such home is that it will be built of wood. So much is this the general sentiment that if house of substantial material is suggested, he will scout the idea, as be- ing quite inappropriate to the country, as being anomalous in surroundings of green things, as being out of place amidst the beauties of rural scenery. We have so generally come to expect wooden houses in the country that a wooden house Is considered to have something of a rural charm necessarily abiding in it. This is evidently merely an association of ideas, and is connect- ed with a state of primitive civilization in a primitive country, from winch we are rapidly getting more and more re- moved In primitive days the settler must clear his land, and the timber thus removed becomes naturally the material for his house. From hewn logs he passes to sawed timber and split shingles and gradually to the more complex requirements of a real archi- tectural style reproduced in wood. The conditions once binding him to wood have passed; no longer land to be cleared, but rather land to be planted, and other materials, better and safer than wood, are available but the habit has been established. and habit and as- sociation are very difficult to eradicate.
 Wood is still our cheapest building material but will not necessarily re- main so, and apart from that one fact, 1t has little to recommend it.
 Let us see what this is in dollars and cents. The difference between brick house and a wooden house lies entirely in it's exterior walls The cellar and the foundations, the interior carpentry plastering, interior painting, and glaz- ing. heating, finish and decoration these all remain the same. It is purely a question of outer walls-in one case twelve inches of brick in the other stud, boarding, paper and clapboards ol shingles, castings and outside finish and the painting A hundred superficial feet (generally called a square) ot twelve-inch brick wall is worth about thirty-five dollars; a hundred feet ot stud outside wall is worth about fifteer dollars. There is a difference of twen- ty dollars. In small house costing three thousand dollars it would add six. teen per cent. to eighteen per cent; but an eight-inch wall would answer here and this would cost about twenty-five uOlldCS LOT Il uuIluEGu SuudT6 I66I, dHl would add about six per cent As the house increases in area and cost, the exterior walls bear less and less pro- portion to the total cost, so that foul per cent or five per cent. will quite GOV CT the difference between wood an( brick on a house costing twenty thou sand dollars. In the case where ar eight-inch wall Is permissible, and 1T the case of all small detached house: where the outer surface is out of pro portion to the cost, one would save eacf year more than the interest on tht original outlay. In the other cases ont saves quarters of the interest or the original outlay; and with cheaper prices for brick one would save it all.
 I have thus far given merely the mi tial cost. There are two items whicl make a yearly offset. First, there ar' the yearly repair and the sure deterio ration of the wood building, which ar' both saved in the brick; second, ther' is a saving in insurance. The item O painting aone is quite considerable one Every householder knows what it cost to paint his house and how this must b. done every three or five years, accord ing to the exposure and coor. Tn weary saving on insurance, though no a arge item, yet counts.
 The remedy lies in a better education