The Inquest

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THE INQUEST.

We present elsewhere the finding of the Jury in the case of the late school-house catastrophe. Our own reflections on the fatal casualty are fully corroborated by the verdict. Coroner Snell receives a compliment for the contrast between his action and that of his colleague, the teachers are praised for the presence of mind they exhibited, and measures are advised for the future erection of school houses, calculated to prevent the recurrence of such accidents.

Although Mr. Harris, whose dogmatic opinionatedness is a proverb in the Board of Education, persists in viewing the destroyed structure as a model schoolhouse, we hope that no more buildings will be erected on such a plan. Built in the form of an “L,” or that of two sides of a parallelogram, it was surrounded on the sides next the street by a corridor which intercepted the outside air which should have been directly admissible into the school rooms for ventilation.

The recommendations of the jury, that school-houses should be built with larger outlets and of a less height, are very necessary if the hot air pipes are to the retained as a mode of heating the buildings; but if as we suggested the plan of heating by steam be resorted to, from a boiler outside the building, the structure never can be set on fire from the pipes, and hence such panics as that to which the suffocation of these poor children is attributed cannot occur.