Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1879 — Curiosities of Fires. [ARTICLE]

Curiosities of Fires.

At the recent meeting of the National Association of Fire Engineers Mr. M. Bennett, Jr., related the following incidents:

Of the fifty per cent of fires, more or less, not accounted for by incendiary origin, many undoubtedly originate from not yet understood causes. New hazards, from new or old processes, are daily developed and some most curious facts in this connection have come within the range of my own personal observation. Some months ago, in passing a prominent picture store in the city in which I reside, on a Sunday, my attention was attractecTby the actions of a boy, which •seem to betoken lunacy. He would stand with his back against the large show window outside for a few minutes, then turn about and carefully gaze within; then again plant his back against the window, j Curious to solve what seemed to be a case of idiocy in a bright-looking boy, I asked the cause of his strange actions. Directing my attention, I discovered that the rays of the sun through the glass formed a focus in the middle of a large and valuable chromo, which just commenced to smoke at this identical point, and would evidently soon be in flames. The boy stated that he was a clerk in the store, but had not his key, and discovering the state of things, he planted himself as a patent living fire screen to protect the picture from the sun’s rays. A well-known Hartford adjuster, while recently sitting in his room in one of our finest business blocks, saw his silk umbrella, standing in the corner, quietly take fire ana consume before his very eyes, and with no little difficulty he stopped the fire from spreading. Investigation proved it to have caught from the concentrated rays of the sun reflected from his graphoscope innocently resting on hi* table. Without a doubt, we do not understand many actual causes of fire, and numerous conflagrations are due to far different causes from those suspected or guessed at In the case mentioned, had the fire occurred during the absence of the owner, and theblock consumed, as it might easily have been, it would have remained one of those unsolved mysteries which surround so many fires.

The census returns of New Zealand for 1878 give the total population of that colony at 414,412, of whom 280,998 were males and 183,404 females. These figures are exclusive of Maoris, but include 1,947 half-castes (968 males and 979 females) and 4,433 Chinese, of whom only 9 were females. —Little Billy has been taken to sea his old uncle, who is so deaf that he cannot hear a single word without recourse to his ear-trumpel Billy watches the movements of this instrument for some time with great interest, and then exclaims: “Mamma, what does uncle try all the time to play the horn with his ear for, when fee cttp’t make it gq?”