PETITION CIRCULATED FOR BUILDING REGULATIONS
Shortly after the fire which destroyed the old Inn Stables and which was reported in the last MAGAZINE several members of the faculty headed by Dean R. R. Marsden and Emeritus Director Robert Fletcher of the Thayer School started a petition urging the precinct commissioners to adopt regulations to diminish fire hazards. The petition reads : "To the Commissioners of the Village Precinct of Hanover:
"We, the undersigned, citizens of the Village Precinct of Hanover, respectfully urge the importance of adopting and enforcing regulations which would tend to diminish the fire hazards in this precinct.
"To this end we would suggest that all plans for buildings to be erected hereafter within specified limits, where the fire hazard is manifestly serious, be submitted to the Commissioners for consideration in respect to the fire risks which may be involved.
"We suggest that, as a least precaution, the owner be required to make the roof of the building as nearly fireproof as possible with readily available materials, such as the standard tar and gravel covering, metal, asbestic shingles, or other type of stiff or flexible shingle composed of asphalt and other substances so prepared as not to be readily inflammable, and that, to this end the use of ordinary wood shingles shall not be allowed within the limits specified by the Commissioners.
"Furthermore, that the Commissioners rule against the erection of more wooden buildings in locations where in their judgment the hazard is too great and make such other regulations to this end as, in their judgment, the public interest requires.
"Our recent remarkable escape from a disastrous conflagration and our knowledge that other parts of the .village present equally hazardous fire risks, and the impressive object lesson of the value of non-inflammable shingles on Mrs. Howe's house,—which by common consent saved the building at a critical time,—all these considerations point to the need of the proposed regulations and their enforcement."
