SOME GREAT FIRES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4561, 10 June 1889, Page 4

SOME GREAT FIRES.

Almost every city of aDy importance looks biick to a ' great tiro ' that nan, at soma time, swept over it, effaced the frail structure reared by man, and broueht ruia if not deatli to thousands. For example, the statistics of Cons'.antinoplc, which m the matter of fires, go b.ick only to 1729, makes bo dreadful a showing that it seems wonderful that, even with all her unrivalled advantages of situation, the city should still exist, or that there should be roofs to cover the 900,000 human beings that Utc within her walls. CoD-tantinople's fire record from 1729 to 1870, includes 18 fires which ranged m destructivenees from 20no buildings to 30,00c 1 , with urn avert>--- < 1 8,000, and patting the great fires where- (fie exact loss has not been "■i.'itiu a matter of record at a low rate, there must hays been destroyed by the great fires ilona m less thin a century and a half something iike 240,000 buildiDgs. 'Ibis is certainly the champion record ; aud when we remember that m the great fire m Chicago, y,rc.b:ibly the moat destructive single blaze of unyierij times, the whole number of buildings consumed was 17,430, the destruction io Constantinople is frightful to contemplate. Another Turkish city that seemi to be one of fire's espeehl playgrounds is timyrna. The population is now only about 150,000, but m the course of seventy years, from 1772 to ISII — there were three great fir-'s. 'Xhe first destroyed 3,000 dwellings and from 3.000 to 1,000 shops, entailing a money loss of 20,000,000 dal. lha second burned 4,000 ships, mosques, etc. The third 12,000 house.', v deudful showing for a town of but 135,000 people. A strange plice for a great fire seems Venice ; yet m A.D. 1106 the greater part of lhit semi-aqueous city went ud m flames. iho great fire m Moscow m 1812, which .•.iii.nl the retreat of Napoleon's army and aii<:h itupendoiM loss of human life, is well known to all ; but just forty years before a fire of the usuii accidental kind had destroyed 18,000 buildings. Ihe firo started by the Russians on the 14-th of September, 1812, wus simply awful m its work of destruction Ninf -tenths of the city on which stood 30,800 houses were reduced to ashes, the loss to the owners being estimated at about .5130,000,000. In May, 1842, the free town of Hamburg was nlmoat swept out rjf existence by a fire whi-h burned for 100 hours, consuming 4,219 buildings, and inflicting a lose so great for the then re?oureea of the town that a subscription w.n taken up all through Germany to enable the citizens to rebuild. Krlinbnrah had its "great fire" m 1700. London has a considerable records of great tires. In the fires which occurred m 708, 982, 1081, ami 1212, the greater part of the city wm burned. Then came the "great fire of London," m 1666, a fire that probably caused more suffering than any other of modern times. But a year before London had been visitoH by the grant plague. JJoforo thp coming of the disease the population of London had been about 400,000. Of these at least two thirds fled, and probably one half of thov; that remainod died. Then came the great lire. It began about 10 p m., m Urn shop of a baker named Farryner, m Pudding I.nne, and raged for three days, utterly destroying all tho bet part of the town.'-.vhirh wfis confined to narrow limit", urid »erv densely peopied. The urea burned over was 43i> jictp", on which were 13,201) houses fronting on 400 streets, latins, el/:. Tho magnificent- Cathedral of St. Paul's, eightyarc parish churches, six chapels tho Guild Hi.!!, the Koj-iil Exchange, the Cu-lorn ;ian.»o, many hospitals and libraries, fitly two companies' hills, a vast number f ,f other ntaroly edifices, including three of tko city gxtes, four stone bridges, the prisons of New jju'n nn.l tho Fleet, and tho Poultry and Wo'.dntroet compters, were all destroyed. h;ivc lost their live? during tho whole conlliu'rat'on. 1 Thn great fire '. of Now York m 1835 burned over fifty-two acres. A fire m Pitliburi'inthe^moyar burned 1,100 houses. Trio flro of ' 49 m ft. f.ouis burned twenty Ihrne jwamboats and fifteen blocks of houees Tvj yenr' later, bt. Louis had two great fire, ;in the first three- fourths of Iho ci'r, * • y 2 500 buildings went up m smoke, and m (!,o second fif-0 others. Pliiladelphia hns i.fvr-r gon« beyond her fire of 1050, when 400 buildings di.appeareil. In 'fis another bluze <|e.trr>ye<l about, half nn much. In M»v of IH-,1, Him Kranoi-fto was «*ept by fire, 10-inp ■'. "00 'ni.ldings nnd many lives. Tho recorrl „f IJosforiM togre<it firosgoci back to lf>7o, v»)ii-n inueh uK the town win burned, but all nr.) oeliined liv hnr bln/.o of 1872. 'fhero wore but. 770 buildings dpstroywl, but they covered •<ixty firo iu:re«. were mostly ?uperb granite atriii-liiri's and thfi Igjk on Ihernnnd their c/m---tenU win 475,000,000. Tho (;hicni,'ii lire of OoM.or 8-10, 1871. win Hilt mint destructive of lriodern times. Tim burnt area was 2 124 urres ut übour. threo and a quarter (quiire mile,,. On it had stood 17, WO huildingH, -tie third l.y count of .'ill m the >-i!.y and of Ihr valui- fully .•.|'inl tn nil Mint, worn left. Twn hundred :tnd fifty persons loM. their live*, 1)8,600 wern rondereij homolesn, and thn pecuniary lo>s >«i estimated at $105,000 800. Jn thrt period of thirteen years from 1875 to

1887, a table of which I have before me (although it does not include any of the very • remarkable individual conflagrations, the great Chicago blaze being m 1871. the Great Boston fire m 1R72, and all tho otbersearlier) - the losses by fire m this country for these thirteen years foot up to more than a thousand millions of dollars.— St Louiß Globe j Donocrat.