时间:2019-01-27 作者:英语课 分类:365个英语简短小故事


英语课

A ten-year-old boy confessed to his parents that he was playing with matches on a windy day in October in southern California. The Santa Ana winds were howling that day, and his carelessness resulted in the Witch fire. That fire destroyed 18,000 acres of woodland and 12 homes. The total damage and the cost of firefighting efforts were estimated at $25 million. Ironically, his parents’ house was untouched by the fire.


The authorities did not immediately announce what they would do to the boy or his parents. An official in the district attorney’s office said that, probably, no criminal charges would be filed. But the parents would still be liable for civil charges. That is, victims could sue for their losses and rebuilding costs. Suing the middle-class family for millions would be the easy part, though; collecting the millions would be unlikely.


Homeowners disagreed on what should be done. “I don’t have a house anymore,” said John Ritter. “It will take at least two years to build a new house, and my insurance is only going to pay about half the cost of the new house. Ordinarily, I would say that the boy and his parents ought to be put in jail for at least 10 years. But because their house didn’t burn down, I think the law should just allow me to trade property with them. They can have my burned-down house, and I can move into their house. That’s fair enough for me.”


“We all make mistakes, especially when we’re young,” said Michael Richards, another homeowner whose house burned down. “I remember setting my sister on fire when I was about 10. I didn’t mean to do it, of course, and she jumped into the lake, so she was okay. But it could have been a terrible accident. I think the poor boy has learned a valuable lesson. People should forgive, rebuild, and get on with their lives.”


 



学英语单词
agathist
agranulocytic angina
amber varnish
antifebrific
azime
azotuss
Ballymore
be bright
be out of the bounds of possibility
Bea.
belauensis
buck off
cathode ring
chief supervisor
circumscribed polyhedron
class relations
class reptilias
cobalt isotope
copper coin
data-banks
Dehak
Dolichopsyliidae
double blade
elastance unit
environmental conditioning
exclusive update
Fatimé
forecast control
fuzzy muff
gaston
genus Leishmania
geochemistry of ore deposit
Gjuvsjå
guidless die
half tone reproduction
halyard berd
Haplosphaera phaea
harlon
homoenic mating
Hose Connectors
hulless
Hébert, Cratère
injection head
innominatun
isobaric spin effect
jacket cape
jordanna
keep a diary
length for butt seam inspection
logarithmic spiral
lubricator cap
M-business
M. J. Schleiden
made
magnetic anisotropy energy
marking signal
meisler
memory oscilloscope
michinaga
Miscleron
mucilago chondri
Muskoka, L.
nannostomus
nigritite
operating tube shield
optical check
pack-train
pimpernol
post-napster
preceding cycle
predicamentally
primary color for light
program identifier
programed automatic press system
prophylloid
realpolitik
rectangular guide bar
resettable data base
sale on good merchantable quality
sampled-data analog signal processing
sarcoplasmatic
scattering of neutrons
schpritzing
scymnus (scymnus) bifurcatus
setting range of the characteristic quantity
single country fund
skeleton crystal
social computing
span length of the installed belt
specification of patent
spurious interlocking of meiotic chromosomes
stablement
subordinated masculinity
subsentence
tobacco thripss
toy-pate
tythings
uncurrent
water inner cooled generator
white swallowwort
wood naval stores
wu tao ch'ang chi