Arizona republican., 1907-11-23
THE COSTLY FIRES
 OF THE METROPOLIS
The City Has 8700 Year and Whole United States Has Burned $500, 100000 Worth of Property in Last Quarter Century.

New York, Nov. 1S.-(Special Cor lrespondence of the Republican,. With the United States leading all other na-
 tions in fire looses very year. New
 York as the largest city in the country
 naturally takes first place in this res- pect in the metropolitan list through out the world. Every day there are | twenty fires here. taking the aver age. or a total of S700 each year. Throughout the whole country indeed nearly one-half the buildings erected | in the course of a year go to replace | others that have been destroyed by | flames. according to statistics which form the basis of study of the natur- al loss by fire which is to appear in the next number of Appletons Maga- zine. The compiler of these statistics asserts that while no other nation builds so mch as the United States. no other burns even q small fraction of the same amount of valuabl property. The figures show that in the country at large S3.5OO. .00O. GOO worth of proper ty has been destroyed by firse in the past twenty-five years. while .0OO. 900 buildings have been wiped out of ex-
 
 fighting is given as $500. .OOO. .000 year and $195. .00O, 900 is paid over to the in- surance companies for protection. Con flagrations consume on the average every week six theatres and public halls. twelve churches ten schools, eight public institutions. nine depart ment stores and apartment houses. twenty-six hotels, 40 flats and 1900 individual homes. Thirty-siX thous- and lives arc reported to be cndang- cred every day by fire while seven thousand lives are sacrificed annually to the same cause. It is said that 73 per cent. of all the damage done by fire to buildings aside from those in which it originates is due to improp- erly constructed windows.
 Milk at s10 per gallon; pork at SIS Der pound. chickens at s35 a pair and cows at from $500 to s3500 each; these bare not panic prices in New York. but the cost figures of the citys most eX-
 pensive farm which is now to be dis continued Surprising as these figures ! may be they are those of the cost of various articles produced by Mir. Will let's the owner of this. the most cost | ly farm in the world, which was run on scientific and cleanly principles-so scientific and clcanly indeed that a meal consisting of a single slice of ba- con and a glass of milk from this farm would cost more than the average family spends on food in several days Tho cowshcds were all constructed of concrete with no corners aud every morning after the cows were turned ha1 and scaldcd At milking times q corps of milkmen. clad in sterilized milk pails to extract pure milk from cows after stcrilizng them by bathing. an extremely expensive proceeding result | ing in milk costing si0 a gallon to get and selling for SO cents in an exclusive market. The same process applied to the care Of pigs resulted in a cost price of pork of SIS per pound. which is certainly a figure to make the beef trust envious. With chickens. the same tender care resulted in a cost value of S17.50 for each. on which basis single drumstick would be worth about g.. To these prices ordinary business methods would add a per centage for profit. and the resultant figures are SO staggering that it is no wonder that scientific methods. carried to the eX- treme has received a black eye in the discontinuance of the costliest farm in the world.
 While New York feels that the ss6J.- 000 for harbor Improvements which it is reported Congress will he asked to appropriate for carrying on a years work is entirely inadequate. there is nevertheless some satisfaction express ed that anything at all may be done The metropolis comes pretty near to holding the long distance record for delays in necessary harbor improve ments as instanced in the case of the Harlem River. the busy little stream connecting the East River with the Hudson. whose commerce last year amounted to nearly $500. 900 900. Twenty years ago. that is in 1878. the improvement of the Harlem on q plan estimated tO cost Se.1O0.oO0 was undertaken. Up to date the work is only about half completed. so that with changed conditions q quarter of a cen tury has accomplished very little. But more ambitious plans are under way and as a result of the city's awakening to the needs of her waterfront. Gustav H. Schwat is to attend the convention of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress in Washington in the first