The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-14
TELEPHONES. EDITORIAL ROOM. 664. BUSINESS OFFICE. S9s1.
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. Issued Thursday. One Dollar n Year.
BURY THE WIRES.

Chief Fancher of the fire depart ment, veteran and experienced fire eater, calls the attention of the .citi- zens of New Haven to danger which confronts their places of business and their residences and homes in case of fire. He says and says with truth that the overhead wire must go as soon as practicable The State street fire this week more than ever impressed him with the obstacle the wire is to a com potent struggle with a burning build- ing.
 It is not a new subject, this burial of wires underground, but as with most things in this life sharp object lesson usually has to precede thor ough understanding of it. The moment the telephone wires were added to the telegraph wires over head far-sighted men predicted the removal of them as a matter of simple protection against fire, though few expected to see the change made until the actual danger had been demonstrated by heavy. loss When the electric light wires and the trolley wires were added a renewal of the agitation to take away all of them was revived. Chief Fancher now tells us in connection with his com ments on the destructive State street fire: "The wires prevented us from raising one of the long ladders to the front of the burning building and also handicapped us in every way. There being no access to the rear of the building owing to the cut, and the wires blocking off the ladders in the front the firemen were certainly up against it."
 This is statement of fact which should appeal strongly to property holders in the thickly settled streets of the city and justifies the owners of the buildings which were injured in the State street fire as well as the oc- cupants in temporary suspension of polite manners. If it is a fact, as 1t ob- viously is, that we are making use of modern appliances of convenience re- gardless of the needed protection of our hives of industry, we are tolerat- ing condition which discovered in another country would make us sus- pect the sanity of its people. The tele- phone company already has it's wires buried. The electric light company is ripping up the streets of the city in it's work of burying it's wires. That leaves for consideration the telegraph wires and the trolley wires. How long they are to be tolerated depends upon the willingness of the citizens of New Ha- ven to endure in the very face of dan ger. To order them down directly without regard to the convenience of tilC COl POI OL bIl6 ucGuS Ol LH6 people would be to make the cure worse perhaps than the disease. It would be neither unfair nor precipitate to begin at once negotiations with the trolley company and the telegraph companies looking to their removal of overhead wires by a certain date agreed upon.
 The one objection that can be rais- ed is that of cost Underground wires are practical for both the trolley and the telegraph, as the experience of New York proves Neither one of the corporations still maintaining over- head wires is Poor Richard. They are all as well able to do it as either the telephone or the electric light company, and while they represent $ great and ever increasing convenience among the facilities of living 1t is fol- ly both for them and for the commun- ity to maintain forces of danger which in case of a widespread conflagration might add unbearable losses upon all involved. The earlier Chief Fancher's counse! is needed the better. Che of the candidates for mayor might with profit include the removal oi wires among his political assets