The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-01-23
FIRES AND INSURANCE.

IT suppose you heard that Blank
& Co. were burned out from the roof
to the basement last nightr' remarks
he man in the car.
mo I" exclaims the friend who
hasn't seen the morning paper. 81
suppose they carried insurance ?"
"Oh, yes-a hundred thousand of
it !" returns the first speaker, at
which his friend settles back with the
comment that everything is all right
then.
This is the laymen's conclusion al
most invariably. Some big concern
burns out, but with insurance to an
amount seeming to cover the loss the
average man is disposed to feel that
it is all right. He doesn't stop to
think, of the enormous risks of bus
mess Which cannot be covered by insur-
ance and which for weeks, months or
years after a fire are Gripping and
perhaps ruinous to the fire victim.
Take, for example, highly organ
lied factory plant in prosperous times
which has been turning out vast
specialized product from the hands of
thousands of expert workmen. This
plant, fitted with costly machinery, is
covered by insurance upon its visible,
material assets. Fire sweeps it and
lays everything in hopeless ruin. If
every piece of machinery, every build
ing and all material adjuncts of the
plant have been covered to full value
In such plant, will the reader dare
make rough guess as to what the
limitations of loss may be?
Only the other day I stepped into
a bookbindery, unostentatious in its
street signs and occupying a fifth
floor In an obscure street. In the
elevator shaft was that peculiar odor
which marks the track of fire and fire.
men days and weeks after such an
accident.
'Most of the fire was next door"
explained the proprietor. "but I guess
the smoke and the water were about
as bad for us. Sometimes tits almost
better to have the fire yourself than
be next door to it."
Which seemed to be especially true
of book material. Where smoke and
SCOT had failed to blot and ruin the
stock, water from the engines in the
street had flooded it until ruin alone
was descriptive. Everything had
been closed down, workers in the
plant were idle, and the proprietor
was awaiting the adjustment of the
insurance which he had been carrying.
But in the extent of this insuranceit-
self was knotty situation.
Ordinarily the house had carried
policies which would have left it the
minimum of risk on its machinery,
stock and materials. Ordinarily a
still further blanket policy was car
ried for the purpose of covering the
normal amount Of book material on
hand owned by others and contracted
for rebinding. But only few days
before the fire the house had received
a consignment of IS, 900 worth oflaw-
books to be bound. These volumes,
aside from intrinsic value, represented
so much of other value as to make the
risk abnormal for almost any season.
And these books were ruined.
Before receiving them the binder
had asked the owners to take out
policy for themselves protecting them
against such fire loss. The firm had
not doneso, and when the fire damage
came the disposition of the owners was
to hold the binder for them under one
of the binders blanket policies.
On this one disputed point, taking
it into court, will some one make
guess as to what this one feature of
the fire may cost the binder, who to
all purposes was insured, fit should
be settled in the supreme court after
FIVE or seven years, for example1
But in the case of the big manufac-
tory, with its imported special ma
chinery, its season of rush work and
its enormous and fluctuating stock of
material-if on the morning after the
fire the insuring companies settle
full for the visible losses, how much
has the company been damaged?
Of first consideration, perhaps, is
the enormous payroll of the concern.
Utmost of the mechanical work of the
plant has been done by pieceworkers,
still the necessary force of directing
employees on salary is problem.
The determination of the owners is to
start anew. Tried and proved en-
ployees must be retained while the
work of rehabilitation goes on. They
must be paid even if they are to do
no more than wait. Settlement of
some kind must be made with con-
tractors who have been supplying
raw materials from the hands of other
thousands of workers. No matter
what the clauses in contracts provid-
ing immunity in cases of fires, strikes
and acts of Providence, every line of
business affecting the welfare of the
mandatory has been affected.
The plant is total loss. Before
1t can be rebuilt the ruins of the old
factory must be cleared away.
In the meantime all those customers
of the mandatory who have been
pressing for the filling of contract or
ders find themselves shut out of any
chance for receiving them. They
turn at once to other competing es-
tablishments for the work. Not only
does the burned out firm lose all
chance of profits from this work, but
it is running a long chance of losing
some of its oldest and best customers
of years standing. Chicago Tribune.
A BELoIT, Kas., woman, according
to the Times of that town, said to her
servant ''Jane, 1 saw the milkman
kiss you this morning. Hereafter l
shall 60 out after the milk" ut
won't do you no good," the servant