Savile House: Why Was It Burnt?

so much firewood conveniently disposed for the perfect ignition of the whole mass during a period of time to be counted by minutes . Even should the rapidity of the communication of flame be moderated by accidental circumstances , such as

the absence of a great rush of air through an opened doox-, smoke will precede the flames , and suffocate those who might have remained some minutes longer unburnt . Though it has been shown that if quartered partitions and joisted floors were filled in solid between the timbersthe rapid

, spread of fire might be materially counteracted , and perhaps arrested , the greater number of partitions and floors are still constructed hollow . Fire-proof plasters winch have stood severe experimental tests , are , consistenly with the general inattention to the whole matter , scarcely used at

all ; and ordinary plastering , which , well executed , is really capable of resisting fire for a moderate length of time , is so laid that it is of little service , especially where joists are weak , and fractures in the plaster have commenced . In short each house is still built like a funeral pilewith the proper

, spaces and channels left for supply of air and the lapping on of flame from stick to stick , only excepting that there is an ostensible outer casing which is more or less effectual in confining the fire to one house , according to the number and arrangement of any openings in the wall , and to the

vicinity of other buildings and the direction of wind . The result from the arrangement of the material quite resembles that from the housemaid ' s

manner of laying the domestic fire when the wood has been dried , and is well laid for the crackling up quickly . The effect to sight and hearing is absolutely identical : the period elapsing from the first catching fire , to the complete inflamation , judging from what Ave have seen , must be the same

in the two cases . Circumstances attending the destruction of Raggett's Hotel , in Dover-street , several years ago , as then described , deserve to be recorded in the history of this subject . We cannot now turn to the newspapers ; but we recollect that one of the

incidents showed that the slightest hesitation in making an escape after the first intimation of an occurrence of fire , although scarcely any smoke or flame be distinguishable at the moment , involves the utmost danger . On the occasion referred to , one of the inmates of the hotel came out of his

roomdoor , saw nothing , went back , delaying little more than an instant , and was somewhat injui'ed in descending the stairs . It is not necessary to allude to the loss of life then , and on so many other occasions .

The value of good party walls was shown on the occasion of the destruction of Savile House ; but the fire in Leicester-square should lead to consideration of the danger which there is of communication of fire from one building to another , through the existence of a feature in the arrangement of adjoining buildings , that is modern , and is

becoming almost general . We have sometimes referred to disadvantages which there are sanitarily in the practice , growing with the increase in the value of ground , of building on the sites of yards and gardens . The structures , which iu the

majority of cases must be top-lighted , form a perfect means of communication of fire from one building to another . The fire in Leceister-square did not extend to the houses east and west of Savile House , in the front towards the square ; but had the fire occurred in Messrs . Stagg & Mantle ' s

premises , it would have been communicated to Savile House , by reason of the existence of a onestory building of the kind to which we have alluded . But this circumstance is not the only one to which attention should be directed just now .

There were other circumstances which , it may be said , might be supposed to have attended such a fire , but which required ocular demonstration to convey the impression of . Whe have spoken of them , but only slightly . The writer of these lines

happened to arrive in Leceister-square only five or six minutes after the explosion ; but flames were pouring out of the windows of the second principal floor ; and in two or three minutes more , the whole interior of the story seemed as a furnace . So early was this , that little more than the

ordinary crowd in the square was to be noticed . A long time seemed to elapse before the engines came ; though we do not think there was unusual delay ; and the Chandos-street station is not far off . When the engines got to work , the water from them seemed to vanish in spray without

reaching the fire ; or the streams bore about the same importance to the fire , as those from a boy ' s squirt would to the glowing fire that there could be in a kitchen-grate . The exertions of the firemen may have helped to save adjacent premises ; as regards Savile Housethey seemed to have no

, effect whatever , unless one prejudical : the fire ceased when everthing combustible was burnt . Great damage , however , was done to goods in adjoining premises , by the water .

Our own impression of the extreme rapidity and otherwise remarkable character , of the total inflammation of the principal floor , is more than confirmed by a statement to us by Mr . J . E . Collins , the painter of several exhibited portraits of Miss Bateman . Mr . Collins happened to be

passing at the time on the footway next Savile House , and the window of one of the lower stories , where the explosion is said to have occurred , was blown out in front of him . He ran to the opposite side of the road , immediately turned round to see what was the matterand saw the flames at the

, windows above , much as we have described their appearance only about five minutes later . His impression was that some combustible liquid , as turpentine , must have caught fire on the second floor . It seems to us that the appearance , whether due to any such cause as this last , or to combustion