Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/33

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC Only when San Francisco, after repeated warnings, had seen the whole of its business section shaken down and ravaged by fire, did she set about the construction of a city that would be proof against fire and earthquake. It was the spectacle of maimed and dying passengers being slowly burned to death in the wreckage of colliding wooden cars, that led to the abolition of the heating stove and the oil lamp; and it was the risk of fire, coupled with the shocking injuries due to splintering of wooden cars, that brought in the era of the electrically lighted, strong, and incombustible steel car.

The conditions attending the loss of the Titanic were so heartrending, and its appeal has been so world-wide, as to lead us to expect that the tragedy will be preeminently fruitful in those reforms which, as we have shown, usually follow a disaster of this magnitude. Had the ship been less notable and the toll of human life less terrible, the disaster might have failed to awaken that sense of distrust in present methods which is at the root of all thorough-going reform. The measure of the one compensation which can be recovered from this awful loss of life and treasure, will depend upon the [ 11 ]