the contract of insurance does not mention anything of the kind, the
companies would be compelled to pay losses, whatever happened to the
engines, so long as their policies remained uncancelled. Now, in the
first place, we did not "suppose" or "assert," as another paper says we
did, anything about the matter. We simply said we had been told that the
companies would not pay in such cases, which was true. We were told
that, and by an insurance agent, who ought to know something about it.
Moreover, this was not the first time we have heard the same thing. Not
long ago, in a discussion in the city government of a town near Boston,
one of the members protested against allowing the town engines to leave
the limits of the municipality, for the same reason, that the insurance
companies would not pay losses occurring while the engines were absent.
As to the contract in the policy, we have often seen clauses requiring
the insured to notify the company of any circumstances affecting the
risk, of which the absence of the town engines might be considered one,
so, in our ignorance, we, and, we imagine, a good many others, would be
glad to have an authoritative statement from the companies themselves on
the subject.

* * * * *

According to the _Wiener Bauindustrie Zeitung_, the splendid Brunswick
monument at Geneva is on the point of falling down. Every one remembers
the history of this structure, which was erected in 1879, at a cost of
six hundred thousand dollars, to the memory of Charles the Second of
Brunswick, the "Diamond Duke," as he was called by the Germans, who,
after his expulsion from his principality by his subjects, on account of
his extravagance and general worthlessness, took up his residence in
Geneva, and, on his death, in 1873, bequeathed all his property, about
four million dollars, to the city. The municipality was grateful enough