Hotel Fire Precautions.
The Chicago Times devotes four columns to a description of San Francisco’s gorgeous new tavern, the “Baldwin.” It says that a “conspicuous feature of the Baldwin is the numerous precautions against fire. In addition to the steps taken to guard against fire, very elaborate, in the construction of the building, there is a com plete system of watching, the halls being patrolled every fifteen minutes during the day and night. The fire hose are conveniently located, five of which on every floor are kept in constant readiness, and such a thing as a surprise seems among the impossibilities, with these appliances and the Holloway fire extinguishers and innumerable buckets in readiness at all times. In fact, there are facilities for Hooding the entire building in the space of two minutes. The Baldwin is essentially safe on the score of fire; owing to the extraordinary precautions taken iu its construction, and the attention devoted to fire-extinguishing facilities, it is as nearly fire proof as human ingenuity could render it.”
[Without a trained company of men to handle these various appliances and keep them in order, they are not likely to beany more serviceable than were those with which the Southern Hotel at St Louis was provided. Fire apparatus without firemen is very much like the play of “Hamlet” witli Ham lei left out.
