AUTOMATIC FIRE ALARMS.

AUTOMATIC FIRE ALARMS.

ARE not the insurance companies and propertyowners of this city and those of others in the United States mistaken in their valuation of the so-called "automatic" electrical fire alarm systems at present applied, as fire detectors? Is it not fancied security only when trusting to such antiquated and unreliable apparatus, easily deranged as they are by accident or incendiary? Are there hidden reasons why they are fostered, and why no reward is offered as an incentive to stimulate and encourage the inventive genius of our country that more efficient and trustworthy ones may be produced? Do insurance companies and propertyowners realize that destruction by fire of ftoo,000,000 worth of property per annum is a dead loss to the country, aside from being an irredeemable one to themselves? Are their eyes closed to the fact that precious lives are yearly sacrificed to the dread fire fiend, which is more or less due to the reliance and blind faith put in the various contrivances recommended by themselves ? Does it not powerfully appeal to their own sense of self-preservation that, if “their own losses by fire in the New York fire patrol district are $5,000,000 for seven months during the last year,” which is an excess of nearly half of the previous one, something more reliable is required as a fire detector? Is not the Board of Fire Underwriters, with their co-operators, the fire commissioners, and the numerous attaches of the fire department, the product of the insurance companies through legislative enactment, and are they not in some respects servants of the people? If we may judge at all, we must conclude that an answer to the last query should be—they are ; and taken as one body are potentates. They recommend and hold, in their might, the power to adopt such devices and means of protection as is best calculated to prevent fires. The various contrivances for such uses are brought under the lens of their examination, and must stand or fall in accordance with their will. None have the right to dispute or question the exercise of their judgment, and the citizen’s life and his property are largely dependent on them for preservation. The extraordinary advances made in electrical knowledge and construction of apparatus in the field of electricity, during the last fifteen years, causes one who is in any way versed in the art to look back on old devices, considered perfect only a few months ago, and view them as decrepit fossils of a bygone age ; that any such should have place or live at all but in one’s memory, seems ridiculous ; and to longer tolerate them indicates that lunacy or worse reasons must keep them in existence. Let us not mince matters. It is always best, and a mark of honesty, to call things by their proper names, and credit them for just what they are, even should they be clothed in fine linen or be venerable in gray hairs.

It is beyond contradiction to assert that $74,000,000 of the most valuable property in the city of New York (saying nothing of the possible loss of life) “in case of fire,” is left entirely to chance for its safety through a misplaced confidence in the reliability of the present automatic electrical fire alarm systems. This delusive reliance is so great, that other old and tried safety measures have been almost 01 entirely removed, or at least notably relaxed, where these systems are introduced.