Year: 1860

Tho nresent season threatens to be sadly
memorable for the frequency and the extent OF
re disasters. They seem to fall upon us with
the reoularity, but without the warning, of the
astronomic periods Science has illuminated
and explained the signs in the heavens which
were the immemorial signs of terror; but it
has discovered no remedy or safeguard against
the calamities of which they were portentous
Scarcely a week passes without adding some
thing to the appalling record of progress made
by the destroying angel and his ministers Of
ruin and death.


1t is only brief interval since one of our
factory towns, happy in its thrift and industry,
affording employment to hundreds OF men and
women. whose skilful hands sent forth its an
nual tribute to the trade and commerce of the
world, was shrouded in inexpressible sorrow
by calamity which has few parallels in hu
man history. 1t fell like a thunderbolt, and,
in an instant, its clear day of prosperity seem
ed to be changed to dreary and starless night.
And from every part of that town, ard all over
New England, went up the lamentation-


Covetous death bereaves us all


10 agrandize one funeral.


just as the inquest is completed, and while
the verdict is passing from hand to hand, and
from eye to eye, the wall of anguish and alarm
comes up from another section, giving no
rest to the weary and almost exhausted SYM
pathes of the world.


We publish, this morning, accounts of two
calamities, very different in their origin, and
character, butequally fatal and terrible in their
result. In one instance giddy and thought
less girl fills a fluid lamp while it is burning
or SO near another lamp that the flame com
municales with the murderous compound sets
fire to one Of the large tenement houses which
stand like tinder boxes in some of the streets of
New York, inviting destruction, and before the
confiagration can be checked, scores of its in
mates perishin the flames. Ithappens at an hour
when the houses are unusually full, the men
and women who worked abroad having return
ed from their days labor, and the children,
who had been running in the streets, having
been gathered together for the night. In the
other case, the cause of the catastrophe is not
clearly stated, though it seems to have been of
a nature less easy to be foreseen and averted.
Here, too, the calamity was so sudden and
complete that almost the same moment saw
the beginning and the end. And of the twen-
ty-five workmen in the building-thc rest not
having arrived to commence their days work
scarcely one escaped without serious injury,
while nine are known to have perished


Though it is painful to reflect upon the un-
speakable pain-so much more awful and op-
pressive than the ordinary wasting of disease
which such disasters occasion, yet they
ought to convey useful and solemn les
son. The same danger which we con-
template at a distance-the same heavy sor-
row upon which we expend our sympathies
and open our hearts, may be waiting at our
own doors 1t may be inevitable, and fall at
the moment when all the devices of human
foresight have been exhausted. The gift of
infinite wisdom is alone sufficient to justify the
confident assurance of security. 1t may be
contingent upon carelessness or neglect of pre-
cautions which, in view of these devastations,
are exalted to the highest of moral duties.
But, with such examples and such warnings
it becomes every person who has other lives in
his keeping to surround them with especial
protection, and especially to remove from them
the perilous agencies of death which are now
in such general use.