Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1887 — AFTER JOHANN MOST. [ARTICLE]

AFTER JOHANN MOST.

The Red - Mouthed Anarchist Charged with Inciting Incendiary Fires. The New York Underwriter! Are Much Alarmed Over the Situation. (New York special.] The Tribune says: “At the office of a firm of well-known insurance brokers, yesterday, it was said that the past six months had been the most disastrous in the fire record of any like period, save, of course, in that embracing the Chicago and Boston fires. So far as had been learned, only two companies had made any money in that six months. The matter has been discussed in every office and every association of underwriters. There is one striking phase of this matter which has come to the fore prominently in a few days, and that is the relation of Herr Most and his sympathizers to many of those fires. As indicative of the extent to which insurance companies are being aroused to this question, it is only necessaiy to call attention to a special meeting of the New York Board of Underwriters held yesterday, to discuss this very subject and adopt ways and means to meet the emergency. Herr Most's book bearing on the subject of dynamite and phosphorus as incendiary agents was considered at length, especially his claim that many recent fires were due to their use. Copies of newspapers, the book itself, and all available information upon the point were a week before handed over to the Committee on Police and the Origin of Fires, with instructions to make a thorough investigation of the matter, and report upon some plan which would check, if possible, the great increase in the number of fires whioh were undoubtedly incendiary. On this point a member of the board said yesterday: “John Most has become a factor in the subject of fire insurance. Our civilization has come to a pretty pass when such a redmouthed, ranting anarchist's utterances have to be considered by fire insurance companies, and means devised to abate their baneful effects. There is some means of reaching this man, and what the law can do will soon be tried. He openly boasts in his book that recent fires are, some of them at least, due to anarchists. Whether true or not, his utterances have their effect.” On the subject of averting disastrous losses in fire insurance, remedies have been considered by fire underwriters from time to time. Yesterday all phases of the matter were taken up. One measure proposed is that every person insured shall, iu the case of a run in such extraordinary, and for the companies exhausting losses, share in a portion of his own loss. Another suggestion was that known as the French system, in which every insured person must pay for injury done to contiguous property when the fire starts on his own premises. This city and vicinity have been the great sufferers in the recent unprecedented losses. Said Mr. Kennedy yesterday: “New York has been the worst sufferer in the last six months, although Chicago, Milwaukee, and other cities have done their best to keep up an undesirable rivalry. Just this morning we learn of another Chicago fire; loss, $300,000." One feature in insurance business which has been brought to light in the recent losses is what are termed “Jumbo” lines, and the matter is commented on with surprise in insurance circles. By this it is rfaeant that several companies which had hitherto incurred a risk of a small percentage have been insuring a much large* per cent., and thus running into the “jumbo” lines. Among those companies are said to be some well-known companies of this city, Brooklyn, and Chicago. On the whole situation an insurance agent said yesterday: “If this thing keeps up wo are going to stop; that’s all. It is something like the hot weather—we must have a let-up or perish.”