“From seven to ten minutes.”
“Why, in America we get out in two and one-half seconds.”
“Y-a-a-s, and so would we, if we built tinder boxes.”
There he had me and had me badly. There is no necessity for rapid and extensive fire departments in Europe, for the houses are not mere lumber yards, as with us. When a man wants to build in a European city he has to get a license. His plans are submitted to the authorities, and, if approved, a proper authority stands over the work and sees that it is properly built. You are not permitted to run up a fire trap in the midst of valuable property; you are not permitted to build a showy sham that may be burned to the ground in ten minutes. Nothing of the sort. Your walls must be solid, your staircases of stone, and open, not of pine with the space under them for coal-oil depositories, there must be so many escapes from the building, the roof must be metal or slate, and the walls must be so built that a fire cannot get beyond the room in which it originates, and the only damage that can possibly result is the destruction of the contents of the room, and such damage as smoke and water may inflict. When a fire occurs in one room in a house, the people in the other rooms keep on as usual. It does not annoy them, for the fire cannot spread.
FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAINE—THE JEWS’ STREET.