Note 237b-2 — Chapter III

French experience teaches that during a commercial crisis there are more fires in mercantile magazines than at other times; while in times when sugar is a drug in the market, etc., many sugar factories are burned. (Dictionnaire de l'Econ. polit, I, 88.) The style of our house-building and fire-extinguishing institutions is wont to improve with economic culture. Hence, for instance, in Mecklenburg, 1651 to 1799, cities burned down, in whole or in greatest part, 72 times; 1800 to 1850, only once. (Boll, Gesch., von Mecklenb., II, 618 ff.) However, in many countries the damage caused by fire has largely increased: in Baden, for instance, by 100,000 florins a year. Insurance capital, 1809 to 1818, 65 fl.; 1819 to 1828, 128 fl.; 1829 to 1836, 152 fl. (Rau, Archiv, III, 322.) Similarly in Switzerland. In Bavaria, of every 10,000 buildings insured, in 1856-60, there were 4.6 fires per annum; 1861-65, 5.04; 1866-69, 8.67. (Preuss. Statist. Ztschr., 1871, 315.)

In Saxony, in 1849-53, there was one fire in every 290 buildings; 1854-58, in every 201; 1859-63, in every 180. Of these fires, 68 per cent. of the whole number were from known causes, i. e., 36.4 per cent. from incendiarism; 28.5 per cent. from negligence. (Sächs, Statist. Ztschr., 1866, 106, 115.) Even in antiquity, similar evil consequences attended the generosity which gratuitously compensated damage by fire. Compare Juvenal, III, 215 ff.; Martial, III, 52. In England, of every 128 cases of damage by fire of "farming stock," 49 were caused by incendiaries, for the most part actuated by revenge. Hence, there, a notice is posted on insured buildings by the insurance companies which runs: "this farm is insured; the fire office will be the only sufferer in the event of a fire." In London, of every seven fires among the small trading class, one is estimated to have been the work of an incendiary, and of all fires at least one-third (Athenæum, 2, Nov., 1867), if not one-half (Mitth., 1879, 100). One of the largest English fire insurance companies estimates that the introduction of the lucifer match has caused it a damage of £10,000 per annum. Of 9,345 fires, 932 were ascribed to gas, 89 to certain, and 76 to doubtful, incendiarism, 127 to lucifer matches, 8 to storms, 100 to negligence, 80 to drunkenness, 2,511 to the catching fire of curtains, 1,178 to candles, 1,555 to chimneys,[TN 59] 494 to stoves, 1,323 to unknown causes. (Quart. Rev., Dec, 1854, 14 ff.) Fires originate from criminal (dolose) causes most frequently when a new stage in the politico-economical development of a people is reached, which renders the buildings put up in a former and lower stage of development insufficient.