The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-03-01
IT'S FIRE TRAP.
w. H. Wilson's Startling State
ment About High School.
Asks for Appropriation for New
Heating Plant.
THOSE SCHOOL BONDS.
Board will Ask for an Issue of
S7S,5O
Where 1t Is Proposed to Use
the Money.
THOSE SCHOOL BONDS.

with the heating system now in use
the present high school building is
FIRE trap" said w. H. Wilson at the
meeting Of the board of education last
night. Chief Wflmarth has notified the
board that the building is dangerous
and that steps must be taken at once to
make the building safe"
The announcement came in response
to a request from Judge Carver for an
explanation regarding the boards in
tention to ask for the sum of $4,000 for
a heating plant for the high school and
the new manual training school iH
course of erection. He wished an eX-
PLANTATION as to why the board eontem-
plated replacing the heating plant of the
present high school. Mr.. Wilson, chair
man of the building committee, offered
the explanation: 1.-The board must in
stall new heating system in the pres
ent high school building for the reason
that Chief Wilmarth has condemned the
present building as being very unsafe in
regard to fire and the insurance COM
panies have Joined with Mr. Wilmarth
in warning us that the building is too
great a risk It is by suffrance that
we are allowed to use the building and
that Mr. Wilmarth does not close it and
order it condemned.
The entire trouble with the building
is that the heating system in use is pro-
vided with hot air ducts and ventilating
ducts between the floors and between
the Joist and should a fire start in any
portion of the building the currents Of
air through the duets would immedi-
ately carry the blaze and spread the
fire to every portion of the building in
an instant.
THE Smeed system, which is the
system in the high school building, has
been condemned by the fire chiefs and
insurance men all over the country as
being unsafe. Such systems are no
longer in use. They have been dis
carded as being too dangerous. Should
a fire start in the high school build
ing 1t would sweep through the build
ing between the floors and the ceilings
and between the joist and be beyond
control almost instantly. Unless the
board takes immediate steps toward
the remedying of this evil at once the
insurance companies will refuse to
write insurance on the building.
The Smeed system of heating, with
nine furnaces scattered throughout the
building, was put in when the build
ing was erected in 1894 at a cost of
$4,000. In 1900 the board repaired the
system at a cost of $500. The insur-
sANC CdAl4Gu Ol the AA45A StAlOO1
ing is $780, 900.
THE BOND ISSUE.
The $4,000 for the heating plants for
the present high school and the man
val training high school under course
of construction is the largest item the
board viii ask for in the new bond is
sue with the exception of the money
for the completion Of the new Quincy
school building in North Topeka Spro-
vided for in the resolution passed by
the board last night, requesting the
mayor to issue a call for a bond cleo
ton to be held at the same time as
the election for municipal officers this
spring, when a proposition to vote $7S-
800 in bonds will be submitted to the
voters.
The first plan of the board was to ask
for 100000 and at last nights meeting
$25,400 was stricken out of the list and
the board decided to make the total to
be asked for in the bond proposition
SIS, 500.
The uses of the money to be raised