Give Them the Power.

Give Them the Power.

It is the province of the Fire Service to extinguish fires. To this end the power should be vested in those having control of the Fire Service to adopt such measures for the prevention of fires as are best calculated to secure this result. In this city the Fire Commissioners are empowered to compel owners of property to adopt such measures for fire protection as they may deem necessary, but in all matters pertaining to the construction of buildings they have no voice whatever. In this branch the notoriously inefficient Department of Buildings is supreme. Our Firemen, who are required to familiarize themselves with the condition of buildings within their several districts, make frequent reports of the dangerous character of some of them, which reports are forwarded to the Department of Buildings, where they are smothered. What motive predominates to secure to property-owners immunity from the enforcement of the laws can be surmised from the notoriety which has been given to the pecuniary transactions ol the officers of the Building Department.

的simple fact is, the Fire Commissioners should also be the head of the Building Department. This latter is an expensive luxury which the taxpayers are required to support, in order that certain politicians may provide “ fat ” places for their henchmen and shoulder-hitters. If it was reduced to a bureau of the Fire Department, it could be economically administered, and in harmony with the Fire Service. Owners of buildings notoriously dangerous, wherein fires are liable to occur at any time, endangering adjoining property, would be compelled by the Firemen—the men who are deeply interested in the subject—to take proper measures to prevent fires occurring. It was only last week that the Foreman of one of the Engine companies reported that at a large manufacturing establishment, where the danger from fire was very great, the doors were locked after the hundreds of employes, male and female, had entered, and that in case of fire occurring while they were at work, a terrible loss of life would inevitably occur. Fortunately, this building was burned last Saturday night instead of in the day time.