400
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
unless they be convinced that these are as cheap as those at present erected there. Now this is, of course, impossible to prove, for it is not true; but when it is generally understood that, in building houses with thin walls and pitch-pine floors a crime is committed against the public, it is natural to suppose that good citizens will cease from and discountenance such building, and that laws can finally be passed forbidding it. At the same time the expenses may, in many ways, be lessened. While a bricklayer in New York and Philadelphia (whose skill consists in making all the joints of a constant w r idth, never varying by the thickness of paper) receives five dollars a day, the Italians, who are renowned in Europe as the first masons of the world; who, with inferior material, can construct a wall not only strong but handsome, and thoroughly understand all the jointing of vaults and arches, earn seventy-five cents a day. The ring- furnace, before referred to, produces bricks of inferior quality, but excellently adapted to the application of mastic, and at a greatly reduced price. With these, the thick walls necessary to sustain vaulting could be built at a low cost, which could be still further reduced by the importation of Italian workmen. The cheap terra-cotta could be imported from abroad at first, at reduced rates of duty, which is certainly as advantageous as importing our marble in wrought forms from Carrara, and other parts of Italy, as is now frequent.
I have heard it often said that we do not need to build fire-proof buildings, as those erected would form but a small percentage of all buildings standing and dating from other periods; but that we need care and an excellent fire department, and various other things, all of which are perfectly true, with the exception that we certainly also require as many fire-proof buildings as we can have. These points are all-important, and should all receive their proper consideration. The lesson is a hard one, but must be sooner or later learned, and those that profit by it earliest will profit the most. An objection to the Viennese methods of building has also been brought forward by those claiming that, in Paris, London, and other capitals, wood is used more generally than ifl Vienna, and that these cities are secure from