HUMAN LIFE PROTECTION.

Patea Mail, Volume XII, Issue 55, 5 June 1899, Page 2

HUMAN LIFE PROTECTION.

As to-morrow is the animal licensing* meeting, it may, perhaps, ho well to draw attention to the increased requirements of the public for protection against lire, and wo notice that the

police sergeant of Now Plymouth in his annual report on the hotels in New Plymouth referring to tin’s matter, says : —“ It would bo within the knowledge of the members of the Committee that there had been a number of liros in hotels in the colony within a very shoit period, with serious loss of life in some cases. It was found then that the appliances in many of these hotels were insecure and in no way reliable in the event of a lire; also that there was no system by which heavy sleepers could bo awakened. All over the colon}' the police were urging the Licensing Committees to enforce better and safer means of escape and of alarm, the following suggestions having been made by the Commissioners : —(1) That light flexible wire rope ladders bo placed in every bedroom under the window, long enough to reach the ground, which would be easy for any person, woman or man, to descend, in case of lire, without fear; (2) That electric tiro alarms bo placed in ouch bedroom, or at least in each passage, which would make noise enough when set going to wake any person, no matter how sound a sleeper; (3) That in every passage a largo notice in largo plotters bo posted giving directions "where the ladder escapes are to bo found, and that a light bo Icopat burning all night close by these notices, so that the directions can be road by any person requiring to use the escapes without any trouble. v The Bergeant stated that in justice to the hotelkeepers he must add that all were perfectly willing to fall in with any feasible suggestion for increasing the safety of their guests. The chairman of the committee said the report submitted by the police.was an excellent one, and after traversing each of the three suggestions for safety submitted by the police remarked that the committee had no wish to impose too severe expenditure on proprietors, especially in country hotels, but the com- ; miltee would order that wire ladders with wooden rungs should be placed at each window of the bedrooms, except perhaps in the ease where the rooms were contiguous to the lire escapes, ur where a sloping mom or verandah was accessible. .Printed notices should also be placed in the bedrooms, suck as “Id re escape to the left ” or “to the right ■’ as iim case might lie. The “ order ” seems a remarkably fair one, and the sooner it is universally recognised that the present “ knotted rope ” attached to windows Is worse than useless the better for the community, and the proposed ladder would not bo a very heavy expense.