FIRE AND WATER

FIRE AND WATER

SOME five or six weeks ago, Chief Swenie, of Chicago, delivered a very interesting and instructive lecture at Rockford, Ill., on the subject of "Fire and Fire Departments." FIRE AND WATER at once published it, and its example was followed at the interval of a week or two by other Eastern papers. At long last it has come to the knowledge of the “Western Fireman,” a paper published in Chief Swenie’s own city, and claiming to be the organ of the Western fire departments, that such a lecture has been delivered, and at equally long last it has flashed upon our contemporary that it might not be a bad thing to show that it had at length awakened to that fact, and also to the possibility that the very few firemen in Chicago who are not readers of FIRE AND WATER might like to read their chief’s lecture. Wherefore, in its issue of February 19, it feeds the somewhat stale fodder to those few poor sheep in the wilderness! Truly, enterprise is a great thing! How much or to what extent our contemporary has shown that enterprise we leave others to decide.

K/i OS l" properly Mr. Hammerstein and two of his employes were arrested the other night for interfering with members of the fire department who were simply doing their duty, one in preventing the aisles from being obstructed by spectators, the other in inspecting the theatre to see that everything was in accordance with the law. Mr. Hammerstein apparently resented this as an attack upon his right as an American citizen-those fancied rights consisting in his claiming permission to block up the aisles of his theatre as he pleases, if only he may thereby rake a few more dollars into his exchequer,and to act as he pleases without due regard to the public safety-just as if he were Sir Absolute. He insists (as he insisted once before to his cost and humiliation in the case of his theatre on West One Hundred and Twentyfifth street) that he is the singular object of the persecution of the fire department. In reality his Olympia theatre ought to be still more strictly investigated-more, it ought to be kept tightly closed up till such time as the aisles up to the sixth tier of boxes and galleries shall be so enlarged as to admit of the easy passage of at least three persons abreast At present they barely allow passage room for one person at a time, so that, in case of a fire or panic, many lives would be lost in the vain endeavor to escape from within the building. Mr. Hammerstein has no cause for complaint. On the contrary, he seems to forget that he is as amenable to the municipal law as the humblest manager of the poorest Bowery theatre. The latter is compelled to act up to the strict letter of the law. Why then should Mr. Hammerstein be exempted from a like obedience andcomformity? Let the bureau of conbustibles investigate his Olympia a little more closely. By so doing another theatre panic may be spared us.