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Show All Favor the Change. "It . is not necessary," said a prominent architect to a Times reporter this morning, t.'that a man'should be an architect or pos &ess any technical knowledge to enable hrm to see that a great blunder will be committed if the plans for the city and county building are not changed, and if it is made halt fire proof and half fire trap. It is a ridiculous proposition to put up a building of this character in this age and not make it fire proof." , ; "I am not exactly a friend of Contractor Bowman," said John T. Lynch, "but I have inspected the work done on this building and am prepared to say that it is all first-class, first-class, and the contractor deserves great credit for the way he has pushed the construction. con-struction. The only difficulty, therefore, is this serious defect in the plans, making the first two stories fire proof, and not making any provision whatever against fire in the other two. It ought to be remedied at once. The building ought to be fire proof throughout, through-out, and no advantage will be gained through having it only partially so." "Bowman is a clever man," said Architect William Carroil, "and will handle his part all right I have uo criticism to make on anybody, but this building ought to be fireproof fire-proof from the basement to the roof. It will be a mistake if it isn't" Judge Bartch, who made a hard fight when the plans were adopted to have the building fire-proof, said this afternoon that if the change could be made at small additional expense and without delaying matters, he would certainly favor it Mr. Proudf oot, one of the architects, was found at the building this afternoon, and in answer to questions put by the reporter as to whether it would be much of a task to change the plans so as to make the two upper stories tire-proof, he replied that the change could be easily made, and if prompt action was taken the construction wouid not be delayed in the least. |