国家阿什哈普。
1899年，美国的物业价值为150,000,000美元，被大火摧毁；今年的损失有望超过这一金额。去年的生命损失高于平均水平。今年，由于霍博肯大屠杀和其他批发屠杀，屠夫的法案将是一个很棒的事情。对火灾损失的比较，这些效果并没有随着年份的发展而减少，而是他们绝对增加了，这是因为这一事实的牙齿，即灭绝火灾的平均值正在迅速乘以乘以并不断改善。因此，应该改善火灾的方法和工具不是那么多。它们在每个细节上可能并不是完美的，但毫无疑问，每年都会更接近完美。真正想要的是，那些事业的人改变了主意，以保护该国人民的生命和财产免受火灾。争辩的第一个和主要邪恶是将政治注入我们的消防部门。市政当局来来去去，他们经常出现新官员，而老官员的服务则被分配。 The outcome is the appointment of chiefs solely because they have a pull, not on account of their ex; erience or their fit ness for the place. Old and trusted officers are passed over, and young men with a few years’ service behind them are pitchforked into the highest positions. Sometimes even au outsider, who has seen no service in a lire department, a man whose life-training has not been at all of a sort to fit him for such a post, but who has proved himself a “good party man,” is appointed to take charge of the most important of all the municipal departments, on whose good management depends the preservation of many lives and many thousands of dollars’ worth of property. Under such a head it is no wonder that the members become inefficient and the whole body demoralized. Another cause of this yearly firewaste is the flimsy or the unscientific construction of the modern building. Even in some which are considered as fireproof can be detected the most glaring structural errors or the utter neglect of all proper precautions against fire. In the average private house, apartment, flat, or tenement-house, in the factory or business establishment of the day, these evils are still more glaring, and so apparent even to the unprofessional eye as to point (1) to utter ignorance on the part of the building aud other inspectors charged with the duty of overseeing the erection of such structures; (2) to venality on the part of these inspectors; (3) to corrupt practices on that of the contractors ; (4) to badly drawn-up building ordinances—sometimes drawn up with a view to getting money out of the speculative builder or contractor; or(5) to all thesecausesput together. Again, we may advert to that spirit of false economy which starves the fire departments by cutting down the appropriations below the minimum required for efficiency, thereby necessitating reductions in the membership and rendering it impossible to man the apparatus properly or to purchase apparatus sufficient for local needs. Or this parsimonious spirit may crop outin the non-providing of a water supply ample enough for all the necessities of the fire department—an evil which is particularly conspicuous in New York, Philadelphia, and some other large cities today—and this in the face of the conflagrations which have so recently destroyed so much property in these places. Even fools, it is said, learn by experience. To what class of fools, then, must they belong, on whom the bitter experience of hist year seems to be altogether thrown away?
1899年，美国的物业价值为150,000,000美元，被大火摧毁；今年的损失有望超过这一金额。去年的生命损失高于平均水平。今年，由于霍博肯大屠杀和其他批发屠杀，屠夫的法案将是一个很棒的事情。对火灾损失的比较，这些效果并没有随着年份的发展而减少，而是他们绝对增加了，这是因为这一事实的牙齿，即灭绝火灾的平均值正在迅速乘以乘以并不断改善。因此，应该改善火灾的方法和工具不是那么多。它们在每个细节上可能并不是完美的，但毫无疑问，每年都会更接近完美。真正想要的是，那些事业的人改变了主意，以保护该国人民的生命和财产免受火灾。争辩的第一个和主要邪恶是将政治注入我们的消防部门。市政当局来来去去，他们经常出现新官员，而老官员的服务则被分配。 The outcome is the appointment of chiefs solely because they have a pull, not on account of their ex; erience or their fit ness for the place. Old and trusted officers are passed over, and young men with a few years’ service behind them are pitchforked into the highest positions. Sometimes even au outsider, who has seen no service in a lire department, a man whose life-training has not been at all of a sort to fit him for such a post, but who has proved himself a “good party man,” is appointed to take charge of the most important of all the municipal departments, on whose good management depends the preservation of many lives and many thousands of dollars’ worth of property. Under such a head it is no wonder that the members become inefficient and the whole body demoralized. Another cause of this yearly firewaste is the flimsy or the unscientific construction of the modern building. Even in some which are considered as fireproof can be detected the most glaring structural errors or the utter neglect of all proper precautions against fire. In the average private house, apartment, flat, or tenement-house, in the factory or business establishment of the day, these evils are still more glaring, and so apparent even to the unprofessional eye as to point (1) to utter ignorance on the part of the building aud other inspectors charged with the duty of overseeing the erection of such structures; (2) to venality on the part of these inspectors; (3) to corrupt practices on that of the contractors ; (4) to badly drawn-up building ordinances—sometimes drawn up with a view to getting money out of the speculative builder or contractor; or(5) to all thesecausesput together. Again, we may advert to that spirit of false economy which starves the fire departments by cutting down the appropriations below the minimum required for efficiency, thereby necessitating reductions in the membership and rendering it impossible to man the apparatus properly or to purchase apparatus sufficient for local needs. Or this parsimonious spirit may crop outin the non-providing of a water supply ample enough for all the necessities of the fire department—an evil which is particularly conspicuous in New York, Philadelphia, and some other large cities today—and this in the face of the conflagrations which have so recently destroyed so much property in these places. Even fools, it is said, learn by experience. To what class of fools, then, must they belong, on whom the bitter experience of hist year seems to be altogether thrown away?
