Arizona republican., 1914-04-26
lclcLEs CAUSE TROUBLE
By Falling from the High Buildings
 on Hats and Heads of People

Two men were walking past downtown skyscraper the other day
 when sharp report startled them and one of the men had his hatbrlm and his face scratched by an object ] that had fallen from the building. When they recovered their comrosure they looked about to see what had caused the trouble and they discov- cred on the sidewalk an icicle that had broken into a hundred fraS ments
 The man whose hat had been dam aged was trembling from the scare, but he was averse to making a com plaint. As he figured, he was lucky in escaping serious injury, and he advised getting out of the danger
 zone as soon as he and his com panion could do so.
 His friend was more indignant about the matter and advised enter 1 ing the building and placing the
 matter before the superintendent. He thought it at least incumbent on the | agent to supply a new hat and he | thought that that would be letting l him off easy.
 ! So hey entered the building and were directed to the superintend-
 ents office. That official glanced
 up from his desk and noticing the
 man with the smashed hat in his
 hand was quick to divine the reason
 for the strangers call.
 i Whats this, an icicle case?" in- quired the superintendent. Hat smashed? Well. I am glad it was
 nothing more serious. Just wait q
 minute and I will make out an order
 for d new hat. for I know it is the
 least that I can do for you
 The superintendent promptly filled
 out the order for a new head piece. { Then he passed to the man whose hat had been ruined, remarking-
 That is only one of the troubles we have to contend with in operat-
 ing this building. Superintendents of all tall buildings experience the same
 trouble in the winter. We take great
 pains to keep the icicles off the
 structure so they cannot topple
 down on pedestrians and we have a force of men continually working on the troublesome ice, but with all our caution and labor we cannot worl; | fast enough to keep up with them. 1 They form so quickly that we can
 not prevent some of them from fall ! ing to the street.
 We do everything in our power to lessen the danger by paying par l ticular attention to the large iccles. because We realize that some of them are so big and heavy that if they | fell on a persons head they might | fracture his skull. It is bad enough to have one of them smash mans hat; but we do not wish anything more serious to happen if we can
 prevent it.
 Naturally. if we did not have
 snow or rain accompanying the frost we would not be bothered with ici-
 cles, for then there would be no
 water to freeze. It is much easier to handle the situation when it snoWs, for we can send men up to the roof and have the snow shoveled
 off. By removing the root of the trouble we forestall serious results, dilHouBn II IS utterly impossible to remove all the snow before some of
 1t meits and the water dripping over the edge of the roof forms icicles When it rains it increases our troubles. for all the water does not find it's way down the drain pipes Some of it overflows and icicles
 cling to the edges until we can re-
 f,1I can prevent them. New York Sun.