The age-herald., 1900-07-24
THE OLD FINDER
 BOX MUST 60  200 Lives and S5,OOO,0OO
 Loss the Cause. SQUARE COTTON BALE CRIME Metropolitan Papers Demand Roundlap Ealing, Even if by Legislation Greed of Compress People
 vs Public Safety
SQUARE COTTON BALE CRIME

New York, July 2s.-The New York Com mereial in a leading editorial on the Ho- boken fire disaster, in which nearly 200 lives were lost, and five million or six mill lion dollars worth of property destroyed, says:
 Tt is the firm belief of the cotton trade, of insurance men, of fire officials and of every intelligent person who has given the matter any investigation or thought. that the destruction of the North German Lloyd property at Hoboken last Saturday would have been impossible had the cotton the piers been packed in the modern roundlap bales instead of by the old-fat hioned, wasteful and dangerous method that has prevailed for a hundred years and more. The promoters of the round bale could have asked for no better argument in it's favor; the cotton growers of the country and every property owner affected by the handling of cotton are blind to their own interests if they fail now to learn the les son of this disaster.
 The Hoboken fire was caused, it is now reasonably established, by the careless throwing away of a lighted match that landed on an old-fashioned bale of cotton. It was seen by dczen or more persons when it was no bigger than mans hat, but the whole pier was sheet of flame almost before the earliest spectator of the little blaze could speak of it or raise an alarm. The old-fashioned square cotton bale, with its ragged jute covering and loosely protruding, 1ame-inviting lint is alone responsible for the destruction that followed. Human ingenuity could hardly have devised better medium for spread ing of a fire. It's record of destruction dis closed millions upon millions in loss long before the Hoboken fire but a narrow self interest and prejudice continue to obstruct the universal use of the round bale.
 Tests by insurance men have proved, first, that lighted matches thrown on the round, burlap-covered bales in a high wind will burn themselves completely out without ignitng the bundle; second, that lighted pine knots or torches placed on the round bales are harmless beyond slightly black enng the burlap; third, that shovelful of live coals thrown on these bales will die out into mere cinders and blow away with out raising the slightest blaze. The nature of the covering, the manner of it's and the firm packing of the cotton successfully resists fires in their incipient forms. The old square bale is veritable finder box
 There is no earthly reason why 1t should longer menace life and property. It carries about 22h pounds of cotton to the cubic foot the round bale carries 35 pounds; it's enforces upon the grower an unneces- sary expense in packing, handling and freight of from s3.75 to s4.5O on every 500 pounds of cotton-nearly 1 cent per pound; 1t must pay nearly 50 per cent more in in surance than the round bale. Why, then, should the cotton trade and the public put up with the nuisance any longer? Why should they suffer the continuance of a system that is antiquated, costly and de- structive? The round bale is making rapid progress on its own intrinsic merits, but 1t has the greedy compress-co combine and the prejudice of hundred-year-old system to fight.
 In the light of this Hoboken fire 1t would appear that the time Is ripe for Legisla- tion in the various states to suppress the death-dealins, property tydestroying square cotton bale.