The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1908-10-13

hulllNos
Openings in dividing walls should
be furnished with automatic fire doors
or filled with brick.
Either metal sash with wired glass
or tin-clad shutters should be placed
in exposed windows. A wooden shut
ter covered with tin will not warp
from heat so as to let in sparks. as an
iron shutter may.
Parapet walls should be built up to
three feet.
Stairways if enclosed should be fit
ted with spring doors, if not enclosed
they should have trap doors.
Elevator shafts should be enclosed
or have a trap door at each floor.
The shinglt roof adds so much to
the insurance rate that one cannot
afford to let one remain on an expen-
sive building.
Wood should be cut away from hot
air and steam pipes. Either may be-
come red hot Against wood they
convert the surface into charcoal and
then fire it.
Metal pollows or ioists if not pro-
tected by some burnt clay product or
concrete, spring when heated and let
down the ceiling of the burning room.
A confagration danger that is hard
ly worth while to preach against is
the immense size of rooms in whole
sale and department stores. A parti-
ton will ordinarily hold back a fire
until the firemen can get water to it
Such rooms should have sprinklers.
How to Build.
It is intelligence rather than ex-
pense in building that secures the low
est insurance rate. One about to
biuld should gather information as to
the influence Of material and detail of
architecture on the fire danger and
the insurance premium. The threat
ened exhaustion of our timber supply
is an i'll wind to be sure but it blows
in one good by making lumber so ex-
pensive that it is economy, all things
considered, to use fire resistive ma
terials for nearly all buildings.
Ordinary joist construction costs
about II &c for each cubic foot. Slow
burning or mill buildings. in which
floors are thick enough to resist fire
until the fire department has ample
time to get to work, costs IA cents.
Reinforced concrete with external
walls of brick cost 1Sc. Fire resistive
construction with steel skeleton and
brick curtain walls cost about 90 cents
a cubic foot.
But our principal work lies, and will
lie for many years, in spite of all our
efforts, among the old and inflamable
buildings of our cities. Many of them
are hopeless, and when they go, il
no loss of life accompanies the going,
we may we'll sing "hallelujah!" But
in many of them much could be done
towards fire prevention. The direction
OF our city construction reghtfully be-
longs to the members of our City, by
the control of the old buildings. Sub
mits should be entirely in your hands
and you should clamor for drastic
It is a crime for your city to allow
people to live in those buildings, to
tolerate them in the community and
to expect you to endanger your lives
fighting the fires that are bound to &C.
cur in them Those old structures
should have their windows protected
and have their stairs and elevators
enclosed, should have the maximum Of
fire appliances and automatic alarms
about them and everything done that
modern science can devise to lessen
the awful danger they represent.
There are a few other things that
the Building Inspectors Society. are
clamoring for, and in which clamor
you should join. We need your CO.
operation and there is every reason
in the world why you should give it
to us. People pay infinetly more at
tention to what you say about fire
than to anyone else in your city. 9th
ers can be called theorists, but your
people know that you have practical
experience in fires. Every day we see
fresh signs of the tendency to place
more and more responsibility upon
your departments. 1t is meet and Just