Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-01-02
-Nsw York World.

escape from heavy damages where
there is compliance with the de-
tails of the law. The owner of every
hotel building, or if owned by a COR
poration, should each and all be made
personally responsible for damages,
Where fire escapes are not provided,
according to law. The writer every
week is only one of thousand of the
travelling public exposed to almost sure
death if the building in which he sleeps
takes fire near the stairways. There
is an almost total lack of enforcement
of city ordinances concerning fire es-
capes, this in the smaller towns, for
the reason the owner or owners are
generally prominent men of the
town" frequently members of the city
council, and Eve don't want to make
them any trouble" And if at the COM
ing meeting of the l. S. T. NJ. A. the
members assembled fail to take some
decisive action concerning this almost
dead letter law, they will soon have
another hotel horror like the Cedar
Rapids one of only few years ago.
SO little interest is taken in this mat
ter, that even the owners of hotel
property, many of them are ignorant
of the fact that there is now a state
law which many lawyers claim makes
owners responsible while others say it
is not worth the paper it is printed
on.
The same condition exists in many of
house. Three days ago the writer
1nn Vl,
to one "of the show people" Eyes, our
opera house has been closed since the
big theater fire in Chicago. but I think
it will be used again this winter, as the
excitement has died out" Has the
opera house been remodeled and fire
escapes provided, according to law?'
was the next question. mo, and the
owner says he'll keep it closed till
doomsday before he'll go to such an
expense. That's the reason we don't
have any shows here"
And two weeks ago the writer was in
an opera house with 1000 people gath
ered-over 500 people in galleries. The
front entrance was not over eight feet
wide, stairs six feet wide, right and left
from the main entrance led up to the
second floor, and other stairs only
from four feet wide right and left, led
up to the galleries. Fire escapes were
printed on two doors in the galleries,
but iron steps four feet wide, on a
night covered with frost and
soon after with frozen water in case
of a fire, made our" opera house
mighty dangerous place to be in, if
fire started in the stories below.
If sit takes money TO travel there
is a heap of money in Iowa. Three
days before Christmas, it was almost
to get a seat in our pass
enger cars. Two in the seat and some
in the aisles was the rule on
every railroad. When the crowd COM
nenced on the first it was noticeable
1ow many thru" passengers We're on
he train. Nm one seemed to get off. |
And it was the trains going east that |
we're the most congested ones. 1t seem
I'd as if all of Iowa that left us to set
lie up Nebraska, Dakotas, Canada and
Nan. egcta, were coming back on II Wis |
t. Two days before Christmas the
local" trade commenced and dying
from tie crowds Il; tho le"e,+7
he cars everybody was going away
rrorl home to spend Christmas. On
such occasions, coming every year in
holiday time, the wonder is the rail-
Dads Go not put ON mole cars. Even
hen there is trouble, for one POOR old
style passenger engine, that ssroans |
md protests becarse it has to haul
our cars regularly, actually had to stop |
amd set up steam, with |
1ine cars hitched to it. We amost got |
,t9leG ON the hill, and were there two
laurs behind, because the engine was
IT built to handle nine loaded cars"
nd the conductor.
',ri,-ensal rarc of a big Christ
mas trade comes to the writer. And
he depleted stocks the following week
showed it; 346,000,00O bushels of corn
n owa even if not all sold, not all
urned into money. made good
Christmas trade. Somehow an Iowa