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ST. LOUIS and Denver are the latest cities to set about burying their electric wires. Sooner or later all of our larger communities will have to come to it, and delay merely means added cost in various ways. Aside from all questions of danger to life and property one need only walk down Broadway, New York, to-day to realize the improvement to property effected by the removal of the huge, unsightly telegraph poles and the maze of wires which but a short time since encumbered that great thoroughfare. As a matter of fact, New Yorkers never realized tne extent to which the poles and wires had obstructed the view and shut off light until they were taken down.
WHETHER because of the vigilance of the German police authorities or a gradual change of heart among the criminal class does not appear, but the crime of arson is on the decline in that Empire. The latest published statistics show that the total number of convictions for arson in 1887 was 524 against, in 1886, 652 ; in 1885, 573 ; in 1884, 609 ; in 1883, 627, and in 1882, 644. Calculating the convictions for arson for each million of inhabitants above twelve years of age, they are shown to have dropped from 20 in 1882, to 19 in 1883 and 1884, 17 in 1885 and 1886, and finally, 16 in 1887. This is a very cheering showing for the Germans. By the time we have fire-inquest laws in force in every State we may be able to make as good a one.
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