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and particular profit and loss accounts," to the stockholders'
meeting.z07
Testifying to the concern that the legislature felt for its
duty to protect citizens against fire danger in Baltimore were
the other privileges and duties conferred upon the company.
This insurance company was to build a magazine for storing
gunpowder; thereafter anyone in Baltimore keeping over thirty
pounds of gunpowder, except at the magazine, would be fined
jC10 and have the powder confiscated. The company it-as al-
lowed to charge for storing the powder but was also responsi-
ble for the powder unless it was destroyed by " providential
or unavoidable " accident. In a supplement to its charter in
1792, the company was allowed to lease the powderhouse.=°g
As a further means of minimizing the fire danger the com-
pany was to regulate all the chimney sweeps in the town by
controlling the number of sweeps and establishing their wages
and working rules. No person was to sweep chimrleys without
a license from the fire insurance company. The sweeps were
also bonded to cover the penalty of £100 for a chimney which
caught fire within thirty days of being swept.
By a revision of the Maryland Insurance Fire Company's
charter in 1792, a company to procure a water supply system
for Baltimore was incorporated. The directors of the Insur-
ance Company were to open a subscription for this company,
but since the Baltimore `1% ater Company seas to be a separate
organization, it will be discussed in the section on public serv-
ice corporations.2°9 Fire insurance companies in Baltimore, as
well as public authorities, were vitally interested in a good
water supply to protect their investment.
Organization of the Maryland Insurance Fire Company, un-
dertaken early in 1792, was soon completed 2'° and insurance
rates were published in the Baltimore newspapers in june.=11
'°' Md. Sess., 1791 c. 69, Davis, 11, 238.
"'All powder manufactured by or belonging to the gunpowder factory estab-
lished by Robert Gilmor and Stephen Wilson could be stored at half-price in
the magazine, Md. Sess, 1792 c. 11.
"'See below.
21o Md. J. Jan. 6, 24, Mar. 6, Apr, 13, 1792. Many of those elected on Mar.
5
as directors were active as subscribers or directors of other incorporated
com-
panies and active in other forms of private enterprise in Baltimore.
e" Ibid., June 26, 1792; a notice of Apr. 12, 1793 stated that the rates
given
June 1792 applied only in towns where there were well established fire com-
parnies.
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