Human law, which has been so flagrantly set at naught, demands punishment. The public conscience will be outraged if the guilty parties do not meet stern, inexorable justice. It is not vengeance that is sought, for "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." But those who are immediately responsible, have not been the only transgressors, although they must suffer for their own guilt, and also vicariously for the sins of omission by others. For we have all sinned and come short of our duty. A common blame rests upon the whole community. Many a minister has been preaching upon the fire, but has his own church, perhaps crowded to the door, been safe while his eager congregation has listened to his impassioned utterances? Suppose the unexpected had happened, and the cry of fire had been heard and bursting flames been seen, would his hearers have escaped unhurt? Not if the church doors swung inward instead of outward; not if the means of escape were not abundant; not if camp chairs blocked the passages to the street. Who then would have been responsible? The clergymen, the church officers, the janitor, with the municipal or legal authorities would have had to share the blame. Nearly two score of our city school teachers perished in the theater. How many school buildings are in such an imperfect condition today that thousands of young lives are in constant danger? Suppose again the unexpected should happen and tragedies be enacted which might even surpass the Iroquois disaster, would the Mayor, and his subordinates and the Board of Education and the teachers be held guiltless? Yet that fearful contingency might have taken place. It is a question seriously to be considered whether or not the great majority of the apartment buildings in Chicago have the doors of the main entrance swinging outwards. I have climbed to the fourth and fifth stories of some of these edifices in which there are dark, narrow stair cases, and all the doors swing inwards. There is not a single element of fire proofing in them. I have gone up, in open elevators, in manufactories and office buildings where scores and hundreds of persons are employed, and have never felt safe a moment while remaining in them. They are fire traps of the worst description. There are hotels whose very construction invites the devouring flames. There are stores crowded literally with thousands of persons on special occasions, where the consequences in case of fire would eclipse by far the Iroquois holocaust. No coaxing, or pleading, or grafting, or business considerations should stand in the way both of speedy condemnation and renovation in all these cases by our city officers. Man is greater than Mammon. The sanctity of human life must be held supreme. The body is more than raiment and the soul than the body. A new civic spirit must pervade the people as the saltness the sea. Duty must tower infinitely above self-indulgence. Law must take the place of luck.