Another cause of the greater frequency of fires in New York and their more destructive nature is the greater density of population in that city. The London Metropolitan Police District covers 690 square miles, extending 12 to 15 miles in every direction from Charing Cross, and contained in 1881 a population of 4,764,312; but what is generally known as London covers 122 square miles, containing, in 1881, 528,794 houses, and a population of 3,814,574, averaging 7.21 persons per house, 49 per acre, and 31,267 per square mile. Now let us look at New York. South of Fortieth Street between the Hudson and East Rivers, New York has an area of 3,905 acres, a fraction over six square miles, exclusive of piers, and contained, according to the census of 1880, a population of 813,076. This gives 208 persons per acre. The census of 1880 reports the total number of dwellings in New York at 73,684; total population, 1,206,299; average per dwelling, 16.37. Selecting for comparison an area about equal from the fifteen most densely populated districts or parishes of London, of an aggregate area of 3,896 acres, and with a total population of 746,305, we obtain 191.5 persons per acre. Thus briefly New York averaged 208 persons per acre, and 16.37 per dwelling; London, for the same area, 191.5 persons per acre, and 7.21 per house. But this comparison is scarcely fair, as in London only the most populous and poorest districts are included, corresponding to the entirely tenement districts of New York, while in the latter city it includes the richest and most fashionable sections, as well as the poorest. If tenement districts were taken alone, the population would be found much more dense, and New York proportionately much more densely populated. Taking four of the most thickly populated of the London districts (East London, Strand, Old Street, St. Luke's, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and St. George, Bloomsbury), we find on a total area of 792 acres a population of 197,285, or an average of 249 persons per acre. In four of the most densely populated wards of New York (10th, 11th, 13th, and 17th), we have on an area of 735 acres a population of 258,966, or 352 persons per acre. This is 40 per cent. higher than in London, the districts being about the same size, each containing about 1-1/5 square miles. Apart from the greater crowding which takes place in New York, and the different style of buildings, another very fertile cause of the spreading of fires is the freer use of wood in their construction. It is asserted that in New York there is more than double the quantity of wood used in buildings per acre than in London. From a house census undertaken in 1882 by the New York Fire Department, moreover, it appears that there were 106,885 buildings including sheds, of which 28,798 houses were built of wood or other inflammable materials, besides 3,803 wooden sheds, giving a total of 32,601 wooden buildings.
We are not aware that there are any wooden houses left in London. There are other minor causes which act as checks upon the spreading of fires in London. London houses are mostly small in size, and fires are thus confined to a limited space between brick walls. Their walls are generally low and well braced, which enable the firemen to approach them without danger. About 60 per cent. of London houses are less than 22 feet high from the pavement to the eaves; more than half of the remainder are less than 40 feet high, very few being over 50 feet high. This, of course, excludes the newer buildings in the City. St. James's Palace does not exceed 40 feet, the Bank of England not over 30 feet in height; but these are exceptional structures. Fireproof roofings and projecting party walls also retard the spreading of conflagrations. The houses being comparatively low and small, the firemen are enabled to throw water easily over them, and to reach their roofs with short ladders. There is in London an almost universal absence of wooden additions and outbuildings, and the New York ash barrel or box kept in the house is also unknown. The local authorities in London keep a strict watch over the manufacture or storage of combustible materials in populous parts of the city. Although overhead telegraph wires are multiplying to an alarming extent in London, their number is nothing to be compared to their bewildering multitude in New York, where their presence is not only a hinderance to the operations of the firemen, but a positive danger to their lives. Finally—and this has already been partly dealt with in speaking of the comparative density of population of the two cities—a look at the map of London will show us how the River Thames and the numerous parks, squares, private grounds, wide streets, as well as the railways running into London, all act as effectual barriers to the extension of fires.
The recent great conflagrations in the city vividly illustrate to Londoners what fire could do if their metropolis were built on the New York plan. The City, however, as we have remarked, is an exceptional part of London, and, taking the British metropolis as it is, with its hundreds of square miles of suburbs, and contrasting its condition with that of New York, we are led to adopt the opinion that London, with its excellent fire brigade, is safe from a destructive conflagration. It was stated above, and it is repeated here, that the fire brigade of New York is unsurpassed for promptness, skill, and heroic intrepidity, but their task, by contrast, is a heavy one in a city like New York, with its numerous wooden buildings, wooden or asphalt roofs, buildings from four to ten stories high, with long unbraced walls, weakened by many large windows, containing more than ten times the timber an average London house does, and that very inflammable, owing to the dry and hot American climate. But this is not all. In New York we find the five and six story tenement houses with two or three families on each floor, each with their private ash barrel or box kept handy in their rooms, all striving to keep warm during the severe winters of North America. We also find narrow streets and high buildings, with nothing to arrest the extension of a fire except a few small parks, not even projecting or effectual fire-walls between the several buildings. And to all this must be added the perfect freedom with which the city authorities of New York allow in its most populous portions large stables, timber yards, carpenters' shops, and the manufacture and storage of inflammable materials. Personal liberty could not be carried to a more dangerous extent. We ought to be thankful that in such matters individual freedom is somewhat hampered in our old-fashioned and quieter-going country.—London Morning Post.
THE LATEST KNOWLEDGE ABOUT GAPES.
The gape worm may be termed the bete noir of the poultry-keeper—his greatest enemy—whether he be farmer or fancier. It is true there are some who declare that it is unknown in their poultry-yards—that they have never been troubled with it at all. These are apt to lay it down, as I saw a correspondent did in a recent number of the Country Gentleman, that the cause is want of cleanliness or neglect in some way. But I can vouch that that is not so. I have been in yards where everything was first-rate, where the cleanliness was almost painfully complete, where no fault in the way of neglect could be found, and yet the gapes were there; and on the other hand, I have known places where every condition seemed favorable to the development of such a disease, and there it was absent—this not in isolated cases, but in many. No, we must look elsewhere for the cause.
Observations lead me to the belief that gapes are more than usually troublesome during a wet spring or summer following a mild winter. This would tend to show that the egg from which the worm (that is in itself the disease) emerges is communicated from the ground, from the food eaten, or the water drunk, in the first instance, but it is more than possible that the insects themselves may pass from one fowl to another. All this we can accept as a settled fact, and also any description of the way in which the parasitic worms attach themselves to the throats of the birds, and cause the peculiar gaping of the mouth which gives the name to the disease.
Many remedies have been suggested, and my object now is to communicate some of the later ones—thus to give a variety of methods, so that in case of the failure of one, another will be at hand ready to be tried. It is a mistake always to pin the faith to one remedy, for the varying conditions found in fowls compel a different treatment. The old plan of dislodging the worms with a feather is well known, and need not be described again. But I may mention that in this country some have found the use of an ointment, first suggested by Mr. Lewis Wright, I believe, most valuable. This is made of mercurial ointment, two parts; pure lard, two parts; flour of sulphur, one part; crude petroleum, one part—and when mixed together is applied to the heads of the chicks as soon as they are dry after hatching. Many have testified that they have never found this to fail as a preventive, and if the success is to be attributed to the ointment, it would seem as if the insects are driven off by its presence, for the application to the heads merely would not kill the eggs.
Some time ago Lord Walsingham offered, through the Entomological Society of London, a prize for the best life history of the gapes disease, and this has been won by the eminent French scientist M. Pierre Mégnin, whose essay has been published by the noble donor. His offer was in the interest of pheasant breeders, but the benefit is not confined to that variety of game alone, for it is equally applicable to all gallinaceous birds troubled with this disease. The pamphlet in question is a very valuable work, and gives very clearly the methods by which the parasite develops. But for our purpose it will be sufficient to narrate what M. Mégnin recommends for the cure of it. These are various, as will be seen, and comprise the experience of other inquirers as well as himself.