一些火灾统计。
美国费城、交换和审查,commenting on the greater number of fires in this country than in European countries, presents some interesting statistics, to which we give place below. Outbreaks of fire make but a very small part of the subject of destructive burn ngs, but such ignitions have especial significance as relating directly to the personal origin of fires, whether such origin is by ignorance, negligence, or design. The personal relations do not, of course, determine the combustive conditions, and fires rage according to physical conditions, irrespective of the character of the personal ownership or associations of the property, and even ignition from personal cause will occur at the highest relative frequency at the highest stage of combustibility ; but the question of the origin of a fire is distinct from the contingency as to whether the loss will be one dollar or one million dollars. In this sense, therefore, it can be said that loss by fire is not a personal question, but the origin of fire is. We start fire in the United S'ates, taking decades of experience, at the rate per annum of about one fire per 1000 population, some special localities rise something above th s mean, others fall below it; and though more than one-half of the ignitions result in loss of less than a hundred dollars each, it appears by insurance experience that, measured by value, a larger proportion of combustible property is burned in the United States annually than in any civilized nation on the globe, allowing for such exceptions as Saxony, etc. This, however, very imperfectly measures the respective material burnings, as here prices and extent of insurance lines are controlling factors. Whether the people of the United States wittingly and unwittingly start more fires than other people of equal number is a matter about whfch less is knowm than differences in extent of burning. As a suggestion on this point we take data of city fires in 1879, and for the decade 1870-1879, published in the Wiener Assecuranz, and make comparisons with the fires which occurred in some of our cities, comparing on the basis of estimated population.
伦敦于1879年大约有3,70万居民，当年有4659次大火。1870年发生了4512次大火，在十年中，年度平均水平为4174。要与世界上最伟大的城市的大火形成任何比较，我们必须在美国六个最大的城市中结合1879年的大火，即。：
