The Morning Star And Catholic Messenger

The Chief Engineer of the Fire Department has been interviewed, and gives it as his opinion that the iron shutters to the windows on the second, third and fourth floors of stores are responsible for a great proportion of the loss sustained by fires.

In the first place, a fire can burn for some time and make great headway before being discovered in a building closed with iron shutters, and, secondly, when the companies arrive on the scene the men experience much difficulty in opening the shutters and lose many precious minutes at the most critical juncture. The remedy, he says, lies altogether with the Board of Underwriters and the insurance men.

The trouble and great delay experienced can be averted by a concert of action on the part of the underwriters and insurance agencies in regulating their premiums and making it obligatory on all policyholders, occupying buildings which are furnished with iron shutters, to leave the centre window shutters in each story above the second floor open. By this means fires could be discovered in their incipiency by either private watchmen, patrolmen or pedestrians, who, on seeing the flames, would, of course, at once give the alarm, and upon the arrival of the fire department the members would be able to enter the building without delay, and thus be enabled to extinguish the flames promptly before all traces of the origin of the fire had been destroyed.