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The Fatal Conflagration

About This Item

  • Title: The Fatal Conflagration
  • Date: 20 January 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.00972
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 20 January 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Stephanie Blalock Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "The Fatal Conflagration." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 26 September 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.00972.xml (TEI)
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THE FATAL CONFLAGRATION.

The terrible accident at schoolhouse No. 14 yesterday afternoon, demands an immediate instruction by the Board of Education to their schoolhouse committee, to report on the condition of the remaining buildings, with regard to their liability to be destroyed by the recurrence of another such lamentable casualty as that of yesterday. It is certain that if parents suppose their children are rendered liable to such fatal catastrophies by being sent to school, a large proportion will hesitate, if not absolutely refuse, to suffer them to attend. It becomes important, therefore, not only to prevent another such loss of life as has now occurred, but to establish in the public mind a sense of security relative to the safety of the schools from conflagration.

This may be done, we believe, by the adoption of similar arrangements for warming the buildings, to those which are in use at No. 17, corner of Fifth and North Fifth streets. In this school there is no fire, stove, or flue, whatever. Away in a corner of the yard outside, is a boiler, from which steam is passed through pipes to all parts of the school house, and an equable, constant heat is diffused through the whole building, with no possibility of its taking fire. A similar plan should be adopted at every other school-house, and then there would be no conflagration, nor the possibility of any. In addition to this, all future schoolhouses—and indeed all buildings in crowded cities—should be built fire-proof. But for practical purposes the heating by steam is sufficient.

Public School No. 14 was the place of meeting of the Saturday Normal School. Like all the other buildings under the charge of the Board of Education, it was not insured with any of the insurance companies. The Board had some year or two ago considered, that as they had so large a number of buildings under their care, it was safer and cheaper to form an insurance fund of their own, than to pay the enormous charges out of which the insurance companies amass their ample profits. Accordingly a certain sum per schoolhouse has been annually set aside, which we presume will be fully swallowed up by the total destruction of No. 14.

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