The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-06-15

pense is justified by the value of merchandise, amounting to many mil lions, which is stored within the limits of this territory. The city of New York has appropriated five millions for this
 improvement. An appropriation of Sl00,0OO made previous to the confla-
 grafton for a saltwater reservoir on
 the hills in the rear of the city of San-
 Francisco would have saved part of
 the loss if this inexpensive improve
 ment has been actually completed.
 Every city with the advantage of an
 extended waterfront could diminish the
 existing danger of confagrations by
 providing similar improv ement.
 Fire policies for an aggregate sum of
 almost forty billions were in force in
 this country last year. The recent ex-
 perienoe will lead to increased caution;
 underwriters will discriminate with
 more severity between the risks they
 take, and make more serious efforts to
 protect those they have taken against
 loss. Insurers will naturally prefer
 policies of the companies which have
 large capital and an ample surplus; from their number they will select the
 most conservative, which avoid taking
 risks beyond reasonable limits in any one locality.
 The profits made by the underwriters
 on their risks are small when compared with the profits which the solvent conn panies have made by their investments. Unless premiums be increased, the next confagration may lead to a curtailment of the capital which is now available for this business. The entire assets of all underwriters who are en- gagged In it do not amount to ? per cent. of the risk they assume. It is al- ready difficult to effect reliable insur- ance which borrowers and lenders need, 1 and which those who belong to neither
 class require, so that they may enjoy 1 the possession of their little property; l it will be next to impossible to get ii when the capital impaired by this sat- | astrophe shall be further encroached ! upon. N $
 San Francisco will rise. like Chicago, from its ashes, city moRe prosperous more beautiful than ever. Palaces or Mob Hill may be abandoned by their millionaire tenants; the Chinese have been compelled to quit their slope oi | Telegraph Hill; but the true descend ants of the sturdy colonists of 1849 will
 remain They are inIbued with the buoyant spirit of their ancestors ant the ardent love for their home on the Golden Gate,
 Whenever cities of the old world, like London In 1866, Hamburg in 1S42, have been destroyed, the calamity has
 proved a blessing in disguise. In bet l ter houses, built on wider streets, theil
 merchants soon began to prosper. Like the cities of our own country which l met with a similar fate, those older cities grew in wealth and importance
 far beyond their former flourishinl | condition.
 A builder in Chicago whom the writer 1 knew saved from the fire of 1871, when
 1t began his horse and buggy. Aftei first using it to bring wife and child l into safely, he turned his back on the blazing town and drove over the | prairie to the place in Michigan where
 he had been in the habit of getting hi; l supplies, and to which news of the con. l flagation had not spread. Contracting | for all the brick he could get, he not only recouped his losses, but muct l more. @se
 | The Californian unites with energy
 characteristic of all Americans the venturesome courage, that enabled tht sturdy pathfinders to reclaim from thu
 ancient wilderness his present paradise
 It was this spirit that dictated the fol, I lowing dispatch from the coast by ont of the largest sufferers: AM is gone but courage" tb !