enforcement of these requirements. It was frequently found quite useless to exact a penalty, inasmuch as some managers considered it more economical and convenient to pay the penalty than to comply with the law. This year we discovered in the city of New York how to enforce these ordinances: we notified the theatre managers that their licenses would not be renewed unless they complied with all the requirements. Theatre licenses expired on the first of May. I imagine that in the six weeks immediately preceding the first of May there was more work done in existing

theatres in order to render them safe in case of fire or fire panic than during any equal number of months in the previous history of the Fire Department. The sud'den solicitude for the welfare of the public displayed by certain theatre managers who had disregarded the law was quite touching. Orders which had been issued each year, beginning with 1910, were enforced for the first time in April, 1914. In those cases where it was physically impossible to complete the work before the license expired, the licenses were renewed until we were satisfied that extra precautions were being taken and had every evidence of good faith that the orders would be complied with within the shortest possible time. In cases where work was actually commenced before the renewal of the license, or where the work was delayed by reason of the time consumed in passing upon plans in the Fire and Building Departments, we obtained from the managers, and placed upon file in the Fire Department, the original contracts calling for the work to be done.

Let me give you an illustration of how rapidly things can be done when they become necessary to the grant of a theatre license: In one of the theatres a standpipe outlet was located in a private office, the door of which was frequently locked. The Fire Department ordered this standpipe outlet moved into a stairway enclosure where it would be accessible to firemen in case of fire. It was not until the night of April 30 that the importance of complying with this order was fully appreciated by the theatre. management. The men were put to work that night, and on the morning of May I a telephone message was sent to the Department stating that the order had been com

immediate inspection in order that the license might be granted.

Educational Work

Another important feature of our work in New York, which I strongly commend to the officials of other cities, is the educational work. Illustrated lectures on fire prevention are given in the public schools, to civic societies, business associations, Y. M. C. A. meetings, Boy Scout organizations, and wherever suitable audiences can be secured. Several hundred thousand

copies of fire prevention warnings in printed form have been distributed.

Just at present the Fire Department is coöperating with the Board of Education to introduce a course in fire prevention as a part of the curriculum in the public schools. We are also taking up seriously the use of the moving picture theatres for the campaign of education. The Fire Department is coöperating in the preparation of moving picture scenarios that will carry fire prevention warnings to audiences all over the United States. The possibilities of this work are enormous.

Legal Responsibility for Fires

Still another thing we have attempted in New York is of special interest to other cities. Perhaps you know that in some foreign countries a person on whose premises a fire is started is frequently held responsible for the cost of extinguishing the fire and also for damage to the property of others. I do not know exactly how the laws under which this responsibility is fixed in foreign countries are phrased, but we have in the Greater New York charter a provision under which we think that if a fire occurs or spreads, because of the absence of precautions required by law or by lawful. orders of the Fire Commissioner, the owner of the premises or person responsible for the violation is liable for the cost of putting out the fire and injuries to firemen sustained in fighting it. No suit had ever been brought under this section of our city charter until the present Fire Commissioner, Robert Adamson, went into office. We had a disastrous smoke fire in the cellar of a loft building. It could easily have been extinguished by a single company without danger to the firemen if an order of the Bureau of Fire Prevention for the installation of a

with. Because of failure to comply with this order, Commissioner Adamson holds that the Greenwood Cemetery Corporation, which owns the building, is responsible for the cost of putting out the fire, and he has brought suit to recover. The decision of the lower court being unfavorable, the Commissioner has appealed to the Appellate Division. We expect to bring suit also for the injuries to the firemen. Perhaps if we succeed it will be clearly established that the Greenwood Cemetery Corporation

must indemnify all those who suffered loss in the fire Once that is established, many people will be more careful.

But suppose we do not succeed in our suit. Will it not be clear that the law should be changed so that such suits will succeed in the future? Should there not be such a law, not only for New York City, but for every city? Would it not be fair to relieve the taxpayers who are so careful as to avoid fires, of the expense of putting out fires started through the carelessness of others?

TH

HERE hangs above my desk a long panoramic photograph of Baltimore, taken just after the great fire. It is not a pretty picture to look at, and yet it is fascinating. The foreground shows acres and city blocks of desolation, and the background shows the tall fire-swept skyscrapers, also in desolation. The aspect is that of the city of the dead. The streets have been cleared for the reëstablishment of vehicular traffic, and that is all. Desolation and ruin rule on every hand. A couple of horse-drawn street cars, which by chance appear in the picture, seem strangely out of place, and the few loiterers among the piles of débris give to the picture that tragic aspect of human helplessness that mutely tells the story of the feebleness of man in the presence of a great conflagration.

To one who is interested in observing the full meaning and import of the scene, the picture denotes prophecy as well as history. Indeed, since the burning of Baltimore, its prophecy has more than once been realized. A picture of San Francisco burning looks much the same as Baltimore burning, and,

great panoramic photographs of these ruins look so much alike that an explanation is generally necessary.

I saw Baltimore burn-that is, I was there on successive days as it was burning -and, as it was my business to observe more or less intelligently what was going on, I may say that I saw it burn. It was said to have started in a small way. All fires start in a small way; probably the first fire that our simian forebears ever dared to approach started with no less mystery than the average modern fire, and yet the parable of small beginnings and large and quick results cannot be more readily turned than around the incidents of the starting and spreading of fire. And right here it might be well to note that nowhere in his dealing with the great force of nature does man so disregard what engineers call the factor of safety as in his dealing with fire. A thick sheet of iron or of brick, or, indeed, small distances with only air intervening, generally separates that germ of uncontractability from the potential calamity that is ever hovering near when man deals with fire. And yet utter carelessness