To judge from the paean of triumph raised by that portion of the press which is devoted to the subject of fire insurance, the impression which such journals evidently wish to convey is that, if the fire underwriters had not been the prime movers in the agitation for the adoption of a universal hose-coupling standard, it would never have been adopted. We somehow had a vague idea that the American Water Works association, the New England Waterworks association, the International association of Fire Engineers, the National Firemen’s association, the North Carolina and other State firemen’s associations had more than a little to do with its indorsation and consequent adoption. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it. We were, and still are ol the opinion that, so far as regards any effective agitation in favor of the adoption of this much desired improvement, the National Board of Fire Underwriters ranks only as an “also ran.”

A short time ago there appeared in these columns a paper entitled “Fire risks in churches,” in which the defective methods employed in heating such edifices were set down as one of the principal causes of their destruction by fire. That such fires are not unavoidable cannot be gainsaid: but it may be argued that their frequency is due, not so much to carelessness on the part of those who have charge of them as to the neglect of the architects and builders of churches to see that the heating apparatus is installed under such conditions and surroundings as shall not render the starting of a fire either from the steam heat or the furnace possible. But it was never imagined that a spirit of old fogyism would so rule as to stand in the way of passing an ordinance looking to the avoidance of such fires in the future, or that a supposedly enlightened city council would he moved to reject such proposed legislation through the pigheadedness and stupidity of one of its members. Yet such an individual and such a set of city Solons have been found at New Orleans, where the Louisiana Fire Prevention bureau, moved by the recent burning of a church in that city, owing to defective heating apparatus, strove to move the council to adopt an ordinance governing the installation of steam heating, etc., which was referred to a committee for consideration. At the public hearing, however, one member of that committee got up and stated that he had used wooden supports for steam pipes for years, and that no fire had ever taken place on his premises. Wherefore, argued this logician, and by his assertive force brought the majority round, like a Hock of silly sheep, to indorse, not his reasoning, but his loudly voiced declaration that fire neither could nor would start from such an arrangement. As “he himself had said it,’ the ordinance was rejected, without the representatives of the bureau being called upon to express their sentiments. It may be added that the same sapient council granted permission to a box factory, a frame one at that, to be built next door to a cotton press! No wonder, then, that Chief O’Connor and his men sit on tne ragged edge of fearful expectancy, waiting for the inevitable conflagration!

It would seem as if there were more suits at law between private waterworks companies and cities and towns than between any other classes in the community. It would be interesting, did space permit, to inquire, first, if the proportion of such suits is greater in the case of waterworks companies than in that of others, and, if so, then into its cause: It is not likely that litigation over waterworks is more frequent than that over anything else, but that greater prominence is given to such suits, because each is reported at great length in the local papers for the sufficient reason that such journals naturally give considerable space to a matter that so intimately concerns the welfare of the community. And, since at present men’s minds in general are more or less biased one way or the other for, or against municipal ownership, it will probably be found on examination that this bias tinges in one direction or another the editorial matter that the subject inspires, and that, again, with the causes leading up to it, is quoted more or less widely by other local journals, whose constituents are interested one way or the other, if that not unreasonable premise is granted, it will easily be understood why the reports of such suits enjoy what is in reality undue prominence. Considering this factitious notoriety, therefore, it is unfair to set down all private waterworks companies as being ever engaged in trying how they shall cheat an unsuspecting public, or that every municipality is plotting against the welfare of the water company within its gates. At the same time there are often faults on both sides. In one case, the city or town, acting on the too common principle ol trying to get as much as it can for nothing, takes advantage of some unavoidable condition to force the company either to sell its plant at a loss, to make costly and unnecessary improvements by which only a lew favored ones, and not the whole body of citizens will prosper, or to reduce, perhaps, to supply free water for public purposes, charging the extra expense to the water takers. Such a line of action of necessity provokes strife, sometimes unfair retaliation, on the part of the waterworks company, the result of which is an appeal to the courts. 11 both parties would adopt a live-and-let-live policy, such unpleasantnesses would be almost unknown.