The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-03

When a few hours after the copies of the note have been distributed, at No 1s Blank Street, receives notices from the companies which have issued insuranees policies to hir that the policies are to be canceled. When he tries to get insurance in other com panies he is met by refusal, but if he asks why the insurance is refused he gets no information. If he has planned to collect payment for stock of un- salable goods from the insurance conl- panies he finds himself completely baffied.
 The question naturally arises: How does member of the association be- come possessed of information which he imparts so secretly to the others?
 Every insurance firm and company of importance in this city has employees who acquire by experience the art of "smelling fires" These employees go about Investigating risks. It is their business to find out if an insured mer- chant is doing a good or bad business, if he is making or losing money. They examine goods insured to see if they are salable and are worth more than they are insured for, and they look for evil dences of preparation for fires which would escape the attention of less ex- pert men.
 As an example of the method of smelling fires" a member of the as- sociation told yesterday to Tribune l reporter the following tale: We had here young Yale graduate who was set to work Investigating fire risks. He
 was sent to building in which a merchant had asked for insurance amounting to $40, 900 on his stock. There 1 were several merchant in the building, and the report which he turned in death with all of them. When he came to describe the stock of the merchant who had asked sor insurance of $40, 900 he wrote that while most of the goods on the counters. were new and salable, | most of the stock was under the counters, and apparently had been car ried over for some years. He added, | significantly, that it seemed to be a store in which a. fire would be profitable. | Our company withdrew policy of $S,O0O on the stock and a few weeks lat | CT a fire cleaned out the store"
 Sometimes the record of a man gives the clew to the investigator. f a man
 who has had three fires asks for insur- ance on stock that does not appear to the investigator to be salable, he usual ly is made he subject of warning note.
 Sometimes single fire will direct sus-
 picion against a man. An investigator for one of the insurance companies looked in at an East Side shop where there had been small fire. The f-e- men said cat evidently had over | turned lighted lamp in the place at a time when the place was left in charge of the cat. Then the cat became fright
 ened, and its yowls directed attention
 to the fire so quickly that he loss was
 slight The investigator noticed that
 there was fish on the table where the lamp had been. The lighted lamp ap-
 parently had been placed on the fish
 before the owner of the place had zone
 out and locked the cat in. Cats love
 fish, what more natural than that the
 cat should try to get the fish and un- set the lamp? The investigator report-
 ed that man so ingenious as the own
 CT of the shop did not need fire insur-
 ance, and the report caused the issu-
 ance of warning note to the associa-
 tlon.-New York Tribune.