FIRE LIMITS.

FIRE LIMITS.

The fire limits ordinance of Detroit, Mich., has been very properly pronounced by the Recorder of that city invalid, because it reserved to the Common Council the right to arbitrarily grant or refuse permission to individuals to erect wooden buildings inside certain limits. A fire ordinance should be so clearly defined and impartially enforced that all persons may know what their rights or duties are, and that all may be troated alike under the same circumstancos. This question of fire limits is a fruitful source of dissat isfaction in nearly all cities, e8pecially in the newer and growing ones. Howevor strict the law may be in its wording, it is sure to be evaded if authority is vested in any one or any body of men, tc' over ride or set aside its provisions. Usually City Councils are vested with such au thority, and the evasion of the fire limits ordinance becomes simply a question of politics. If a man having favor with the Council, and owns a brick suLoke house within the tire ]imits,he can readily get permission to make a wooden addition to his smoke house, which shall expand it into the dimensions of a good sized dwelling, or a capacious warehouse. Or if he owns a small frame house which was built before the fire limits were es. tablished, it is an easy matter for the in uentia1 ward politician to get authority to add another story to his house, or to put on an addition. By repeating his application year after year, he soon finds himself the owner of a capacious frame building, in the very heart of the city, which has cost him but little, while his less influential neighbors have been compelled to comply with the building law, and erect costly brick edifices. We have known this to be done repeatedly in Western cities, till the fire limits ordinance became a mockery and a by-word.

这是每个公民的利益ted, inasmuch as the erection of frame buildings in the business portion of a city endangers all adjacent property, and largely increases the fire risk. Rates of insurance are made to correspond with the fire risk, and innocent parties are tints subjected tu a direct taxation, in order that a neighbor might violate the law. We trust the decision of the Recorder of Detroit is good law, and that it will be the moans of depriving all City Councils of the privilege of granting permission to individuals to place the property of their neighbors in jeopardy.