forms us,

ings read before the Institute of Civil Engi- , under a great heat. The former plan has the neers on February 29th, 1849, was the first, great advantage that it ensures the safety of we believe, to draw attention to this serious the principal contents, as well as of the builddefect in a material used so extensively in ing itself. The new Record-Office in Fettermodern buildings. Since that paper was read, lane is a perfect specimen of the kind, and is, a case has come under his notice, which perhaps, the only absolutely fire proof strucclearly testifies to the truth of his position :- ture in England, being constructed of iron and

stone, and having no

room larger than 17 feet A chapel in Liverpool-road, Islington, 70 feet by 25, and 17 feet high, with a cubical conin length and 52 feet in breadth, took fire in the tents of only 8000 feet. None of the rooms cellar on the 2nd October, 1848, and was com

open into each other, but into a vaulted paspletely burned down. After the fire it was ascertained that, of thirteen cast-iron pillars ased to sage by means of iron doors; and if the docusupport the galleries, only two remained perfect; ments were to take fire in any one of them, the greater part of the others were broken into they would burn out as innocuously to the small pieces, the metal appearing to have lost all rest of the building as coals in a grate. power of cohesion, and some parts were melted, It must not be supposed that we disparage of which specimens are now shown. It should altogether the use of iron and stone in the be observed that these pillars were of ample erection of warehouses, even where they are strength to support the galleries when filled by built on the ordinary plan; for the outside the congregation, but when the fire reached them they crumbled under the weight of the timber structure they are invaluable, and render it only, lightened as it must have been by the pro

safe from most extraneous danger. No better gress of the fire.'

proof of this could be given than the experi

ence of Liverpool, whose fires during the last But when we are considering the safety of balf-century have been on the most gigantic Manchester warehouses, we are also consider- scale. The larger bonded and other wareing the lives of the young men who are em- houses were generally built with continuous ployed in them, and are in most cases located in roofs, and with wooden doors and pent-houses the upper stories. In several of the wholesale to the different stories, which always kindled warehouses in the City, as Mr. Braidwood in- when there was a fire on the opposite side of

the narrow streets in which they were ordithe cast iron pillars are much less in proportion had conflagrations increased about the year

narily placed. To such a lamentable extent to the weight to be carried than those referred to, 1841, that the rate of insurance, which had and would be completely in the draught of a fire. If a fire should unfortunately take place under been eight shillings per cent., ran up to thirtysuch circumstances, the loss of human life might six shillings

. This was about the time of the be very great, as the chance of fifty, eighty, or Formby-street fire, when 379,0001. worth of ono hundred people escaping, in the confusion of property was destroyed, and the total losses a sudden nicht alarm, by one or two ladders to from the beginning of the century bad not the roof, could scarcely bo calculated on, and the been less than tbree millions and a quarter time such escape must necessarily occupy, independent of all chance of accidents, would be con

sterling. The magnitude of the evil called siderable.'

for a corresponding remedy. A Bill was ob

tained in 1843 for the amendment of the The application of water would only aggra- Building Act; party-walls were run up five vate the difficulty, for, if it touched the red- feet high between each warehouse, doors and hot iron, in all probability it would cause it pent-houses were constructed of iron, the cubito fracture and render it useless as a support. cal contents of the buildings themselves were It is well known that furnace bars are very limited, &c.; and the effect of these improvespeedily destroyed by a leakage of the boiler, ments was so to diminish the risk that insur-the effect of the steam on the under side of ances fell to their normal rate. It cannot be the bars being to curve and twist them. To said, however, that Liverpool has yet purged ensure a perfectly fire-proof building we must herself of the calamity of fire. resort to one of two courses either we must In ordinary dwellings and in public offices divide large warehouses into compartments the uso of iron and stone, again, cannot be by solid brick divisions, and thus confiue any too much commended ; in such buildings the fire that should happen to break out within rooms are comparatively small, and their conmanageable limits, just as we save an iron tents are not sufficiently inflammable either ship from foundering, on account of a circum- in quantity or quality to injure these materials. scribed fracture, by having her built in com- A marked diminution in the number of fires partments; or we must resort to the old Ro- in the Metropolis may be expected, from the man plan of building--that is, support the almost universal use of iron and stope in new floors upon brick piors and groined arches structures of this kind. The houses in Vicwell laid in cement, for mortar will pulverise toria-street, Westminster, built upon the flat? VOL. XCVI.

tions. *

system, are, we should say, entirely fireproof, which form the funnel of the house; and as the floors are either vaulted or filled in with hence the necessity for rendering them as concrete, which will not allow the passage of secure as possible, in order to provide a line fire. Nearly all Paris is built in this manner, of retreat for the inmates. and hence its freedom from large conflagra- We have said that London is growing up

Were it not for this, no city would wards to the sky-n0 house in any valuable be more likely to suffer, as the houses are portion of the Metropolis being now rebuilt very high, and the supply of water extremely without the addition of at least one story. bad. To Londoners it seems little better Eighty and ninety feet is getting a common than a farce to watch the sapeurs-pompiers height for our great offices and warehouses, hurrying to a fire with an engine not much which is tantamount to saying that a certaiu bigger than a garden squirt, followed by a portion of the Metropolis, and that a conwater-barrel--resources which are found suffi- stantly increasing one, is outgrowing the power cient to cope with the enemy, confined as it of the Fire Brigade, as no engine built upon is within such narrow limits.

the present plan can throw water for many Without going to the expense of stone and minutes to such an elevation. Mr. Braidwood iron, we might, by taking a hint from the foresees that he must call in the aid of the Parisians, make the rooms of our private common drudge steam. In America they houses fireproof, by abandoning the absurd bave already introduced this new agent with custom of separating rooms by hollow wooden some success, and in London we have proved floors and hollow wooden partitions thinly its power in the floating-engine. Steam firecoated with plaster--a method which has the engines, it is evident, will soon be brought effect of circulating the fire from the bottom into use, unless we do away with the necessity to the top of the house in the quickest pos- for engines at all by fixing the bose directly sible space

of time. If a fire breaks out in a on the mains, as is done at Hamburg. But room, the ceiling will, it is true, stop the to effect this it will be necessary to relay the flames for a considerable time; but the hollow whole Metropolis with much larger pipes, to partitions full of air act as conductors, and increase their number, and at the same time the firemen have often found that the flames adopt the constant-service system. At presenty have spread from a lower to an upper apart- even if we had the water always on, the mains ment by this secret channel, without injuring are often so small as to preclude the use of the intermediate rooms, and without even its more than two or three hose-for, if the colprogress being suspected. As we understand lective diameters of the areas of the latter that the Building Act is to be amended this exceed that of the pipe which feeds them, the session, we trust Sir William Molesworth will pressure will cease, and no water will be proextend the clause relating to party walls to pelled to any height through the jet. It canrooms as well as to houses. The expense not be denied, however, that if the streets of need be put trifling, as will be seen by con- London were all supplied with capacious sulting the little work of Mr. Hosking, who mains, and the different companies plugged was the first, we believe, to instruct the English them profusely (a thing they are very chary public in the admirable methods of the Pari- of doing, for fear of their being injured by sian builders. Iustead of using fiinsy laths the wear and tear of the fire-engines), London for their partitious, they employ stout oaken would be rendered far more secure than it is pieces of wood, as thick as garden palings; at present, and scarcely any fire could withthese they nail firmly on each side of the stand the full force of constant streams of framing of the partition, fill the space between thousands of gallons of water per minute. At with rubble and plaster of Paris, and thickly present the greater portion of the water is coat the whole of the wall with the latter. wasted ; at the destruction of the Houses of The floors-are managed in the same manner, Parliament, a body of this element equal to as well as the under side of the stairs, which an acre in arca, and twelve feet deep, flowed are thus rendered almost as fireproof as a from the mains, a tenth part of which could stone flight. Very many lives would be saved not have been used by the twenty-three jets in Great Britain if this simple expedient were that were playing simultaneously. adopted by our builders, instead of making It will not here be out of place to say a few the stairs of ill-fitted wood, full of air-crevices, words upon the method of extinguishing and covering their under side with a thin film flame by means of the gaseous mixture conof plaster; for fire always makes for the stairs, tained in Phillips's fire-annihilators. Accord

ing to a writer in the Household Words,' * In Nottingham, where they have gypsum in the ordinary sized annihilator is less than that the neighbourhood as they have in Paris

, they of a small upright iron coalscuttle, and its form their floors and partitions in the same solid manner, and the consequence is that a building is weight not greater than can be easily carried l'arely burned down in that town.

by man or woman to any part of the house.

It is charged with a compound of charcoal, places where at present he dares not enter, nitre, and gypsum, moulded into the form of a unless protected by the unwieldy smokelarge brick; the igniter is a glass tube insert: jacket, the supply of air to which might at ed into the top of this brick; enclosing two any time be cut off by rubbish falling upon phials—one fisled with the mixture of chlorate the hose through which it is pumped to him of potassa and sugar, the other containing a by the engine. few drops of sulphuric acid. A slight blow Although it is foreign to our design to upon a knob drives down a pin which breaks speak at length of agricultural fires, and inthe phials, and the different mixtures coming cendiarism among farming stock, the subject in contact ignite the mass, the gas arising is too important to be entirely omitted. One froin which, acting upon a water-chamber of the largest London insurance-offices, intecontained in the machine, produces a steam, rested in farming stock, posts up bills about and the whole escapes forth in a dense, ex- premises they have insured, which, after panding cloud.

stating that no lucifers are to be used, or Mr. Phillips made some public experiments pipes are to be smoked, goes on to say, This with his fire-annihilator three or four years farm is insured; the fire office will be the ago, in which its power to put out the fiercest only sufferer in the event of a fire. The infame was fully proved. The timber frame- ference is, that the labourer will feel more work of a three-storied house smeared with inclined to pay respect to the property of an pitch and tar, upon being fired, was instantly insurance company than to that of the farmer. extinguished: quantities of pitch, tar, and oil Yet it is far from being the case that the crime of turpentine, which only burn the stronger is always prompted by personal ill-will. One for the presence of water, were dealt with of the largest agricultural incendiaries upon still more expeditiously. The valuable quality record was a city weaver, who acted from a of rendering an atmosphere of dense smoke, general spirit of «discontent, without any in which no living thing could exist, perfectly hatred or knowledge of the owners. In respirable, was also shown in the most satis- other instances the sole motive is the 'jollififactory manner. Since that time the machine cation' which generally follows a fire upon a has been brought into action at Leeds, where farm : this fact came to light at a trial in it put out a fire in an attic: and in a very Cambridge eight or nine years since, when serious conflagration, which took place in the a man who was sentenced to death for setting spirit-room, and afterwards extended to the fire to a homestead confessed to having main hatch way of the mail steamer, the City caused twelve different fires, his only object of Manchester, in the autumn of 1852, it was being the desire to obtain the few shillings, applied with the most perfect success. There and the refreshment of bread, cheese, and can be no doubt that in all confined places ale, which are given to labourers on these octhe control of the annibilator over flame is casions. On the other hand, if the farmer omnipotent-acting much more speedily than determines to give no recompense,

recompense, the hangwater, and, unlike that element, doing no da- ers-on have been known to put their hands mage. When the flames are unconfined, the in their pockets and watch bis property burn annihilator will prove of little use, because, wish the utmost indifference, if not with glee. the gaseous cloud that issues from it not The causes of fire wbich the farmer has being heavier than the air, it cannot be pro- mainly to guard against may be at once seen jected to any distance. As an auxiliary to by the following table, for which we are inthe engine, it will be invaluable in many debted to the manager of the County Fire cases, as it will enable the fireman to go into | Office :

.

Losses on Farming Stock between January the 1st and November the 30th, 1863.

:

These losses are upon a total insurance of means. If water is at hand, throw upon it as eight millions.

Incendiarism and children much as possible. playing with lucifers are the two grand the blankets, &c., covering the adjoining stacks,

If engines arrive, let the water be thrown upon olements of destruction; and the former, we

and then upon the stack on fire. are given to understand, is below the general

Among the numerous hands who flock to assist average. Kind treatment and better educa- upon these occasions, many do mischief by their tion are the only shields that can protect the want of knowledge, and especially by opening the farmer against incendiarism. The nuisance fired stack and scattering the embers. In order arising from children playing with lucifers to obviate this evil, place your best man in commay be abated by the absolute denial of mand over the stack on fire, desire him to make it matches to young boys about a farm, who, to his sole duty to prevent it being disturbed, and to cook their dinners, generally cause conflagra

keep it pressed and watered.

Place other men, in whose steadiness you have tions near the ricks in the winter, and among confidenco, to watch the adjoining ricks, to keep the standing corn whilst 'keeping birds' in the coverings over them, and to extinguish any the summer. The following excellent sugges- embers flying from the stack on fire. In order to tions are by Mr. Beaumont, the Secretary of effect this it is most desirable that there should the County Fire Office.

be ladders at hand to enable one or two of the labourers to mount upon cach stack.

If the ricks are separated from each other, and Precautions to be taken against a Fire.

there is no danger of the fire extending to a

second, it is of course desirablo to save as much Forbid your men to use lucifer matches, smoke of the one on fire as may be possible. That or light pipes or cigars, destroy wasps' nests, or however is not unfrequently accomplished by fire off guns, in or near the rick-yard, or to throw keeping the rick compactly together rather than hot cinders into or against any wooden out-build. by opening it. ing on the farm, on pain of instant dismissal. Send for all the neighbours' blankets and tarPlace

your ricks in a single line, and as far dis- paulins: these are invaluable, they are near at fant from each other as you conveniently can.

hand, and can be immediately applied. Place hay-ricks and corn-stacks alternately; the hay-rick will check the progress of the fire. Keep-the rick-yard, and especially the spaces

The companies are always very willing to between the stacks and ricks, clear of all loose pay for any damage done in attempting to straw; and in all respects in a neat and clean save their property. state. The loose straw is more frequently the The business of the Fire Brigade is to promeans of firing, than the stack itself.

tect property and not life from fire, though Have a pond close to the rick-yard, although the men of course use every exertion to save there may be but a bad supply of water.

When a steam-thrashing machine is to be the inmates, and are always provided with a used, place it on the lee side of the stack or barn, jumping sheet' to catch those who precipiso that the wind may blow the sparks away from tate themselves from the roofs and windows the stacks. Let the engine be placed as far from of houses. As the danger to life generally the machine as the length of the strap will allow. | arises at a very early stage of a fire, when Have the loose straw continually cleared away the freshly aroused inhabitants fly distracted from the engine; seo that two or three pails of into very dangerous places, and often destroy water are kept constantly close to the ash-pan, themselves by needless baste, it is highly neand that the pan itself is kept constantly full of

cessary to have help at hand before the engines

can possibly arrive. There are, it is true, ladHow to act when a Fire has broken out in a Rick.

ders placed against all parish churches, but yard.

they are always locked up, often rotten, and

never in charge of trained individuals : acDo not wait for the engines, nor for the assist- cordingly they may be classed for inefficiency ance of the labourers from a distance. Depend with the parish engines. A proof of this was entirely upon the immediate and cnergètic exer- given at the calamitous fire which occurred tions of yourself and your own ben. Do not allow the rick or stack on fire to be occasion Mrs. Round and several other per

in Dover Street, at Raggett's Hotel, on which disturbed let it burn itself out-but let every exertion be made to press it compactly together,

sons were lost through the conduct of the and, as far as is practicablo, prevent any lighted keeper of one of the fire-escapes of the parish particles flying about.

of St. James being absent when called, and Get togethor all your blankets, carpets, sacks, drunk when, upon his arrival, he attempted rugs, and other similar articles, soak them to put liis machine in action : the keeper of thoroughly in water, and place them over and against the adjoining ricks and stacks, towards stationed in Golden Square, refused to go to

a second escape belonging to this parish, and which the wind blows.

Having thus covered the sides of the ricks ad- a fire in Soho, which occurred in 1852, bejoining that on firo, devoto all your attention to

cause it was out of his district; the consethe latter. Proes it together by every aynilablo 1 quence was that seven persons threw them

ho

water.

e-escape and

selves from the windows, and were all more | We are all familiar with the sight of these or less dangerously injured.

strange-looking machines as they come towerIn 1833 the Royal Society for the Protec- ing along in the dusk of the evening towards tion of Life from Fire, which had been im- their appointed stations, but few perhaps have perfectly organised a year or two before, was seen them in action, or have examined the fully established, and has continued to in- manner in which they are constructed. There crease the sphere of its influence year by year. are several methods of building them, but the The committee of management, appreciating ono chiefly used is Wivell's, a very simple the value of celerity in attending fires, have machine and speedily put in action, a descripmarked the Metropolis out into fifty-five tion of which we take from the Society's Resquares of half a mile each : in forty-two of port :these they have established a station,* in its most central part, at which a fire

The main ladder reaches from thirty to thirtytrained conductor are to be found from 9 P.M.

five feet, and can instantly be applied to most to 6 A.M. from Lady-day to Michaelmas, and lever. The upper ladder folds over the main

second-floor windows by means of the carriage from 8 P.M. to 7 A.M. from Michaelmas to ladder, and is raised easily in the position repreLady.day. When the remaining thirteen sented, by a rope attached to its lever irons on squares are furnished there will be means of either side of the main ladder; or, as recently rescue from fire within a quarter of a mile of adopted in one or two of the Escapes, by an ar- · every house in London : thus the nightly rangement of pulleys in lieu of the lever irons. watch for this purpose is better organized with The short ladder, for first floors, fits in under the respect to number of stations than even the Under the whole length of the main ladder is a

carriage, and is often of the greatest service. Fire Brigade, and like this force, it is under

canvas trough or bagging, made of stout sailcloth, the general management of a single director. protected by an outer trough of copper wire net,

leaving sufficient room between for the yielding

of the canvas in a person's descent. The addition * The following are the stations of the fire-es- of the copper wire is a great improvement, as, alcapes:

though not affording an entire protection against Western District.-1. Edgeware-road, near Cam- the canvas burning, it in most cases avails, and bridge-terrace; 2. Baker-street, corner of King- prevents the possibility of any one falling through. street; 3. Great Portland-street, by the chapel; The soaking of the canvas in alum and other solu4. New Road, corner of Albany-street; 5. New tions is also attended to; but this, while proventRoad, Euston-square, in front of St. Pancras Church; 6. Camden Town, in front of The South- ing its faming, cannot avoid the risk of accident ampton Arms ;' 7. Battlebridge, King's-cross; 8.

from the fire charring the canvas.' Guilford-street, Foundling-hospital; 9. Bedfordrow, South-end; 10. Hart-street, Bloomsbury, by When we remember that the fire-escapes St. George's Church; 11. Tottenham-court-road, by often have to be raised above windows from the chapel; 12. Oxford-street, corner of Dean-street, which the flames are pouring forth, it will be Sobo; 18. Oxford-street, corner of Marylebonelane ; 14. Oxford-street west, corner of Connaught- seen how valuable is this double protection place; 15. South Audley-street, by the chapel; against the destruction of the canvas. The 16. Brompton, near Knightsbridge-green; 17. Ea- necessity, for it was shown at a fire in Crawton-square, by St. Peter's Church; 18. Westmin- ford Street, Marylebone, where an explosion ster, No 1, Broad Sanctuary; 19. Westminster: took place, which fired the canvas and let the No. 2, Horseferry-road; 20. West Strand, Trafalgar-square, by St. Martin's Church ; 21. Strand, by conductor fall through, just as he was rescuSt. Clement's Church,

ing an inmate,

-an accident by which he was Eastern District. 22. New Bridge-street, by the dreadfully injured. When people look up Obelisk; 23. Holbore-hill, corner of Hatton-gar. these fire-escapes they generally shudder at den; 24. Aldersgate-street, opposite Carthusianstreet; 25. Clerkenwell, St. John-street, opposite the idea of having to enter the bag, suspended Corporation-row; 26. Islington, No. 1, on the at a height of forty feet from the ground, but Green; 27. Islington, No. 2, Compton-terrace, in the hour of danger the terrified inmates Highbury end; 28. Old-street, St. Luke's, corner

Once of Bath-street; 29. Shoreditch, in front of the in, they slide down the bulging canvas in the

never exhibit the slightest reluctance. church; 30. Bishopsgate-street, near Widegatestreet; 31. Whitechapel, High-street, in front of gentlest manner, without any of the rapidity the church; 32, Aldgate, corner of Leadenhall- that would be imagined from the almost perstreet and Fenchurch-street; 83. The Royal Ex- pendicular position in which it hangs. change, by the Wellington Statue ; 34. Cheapside, by the Western Obelisk ; 35. Southwark, in front New Road, is constructed so that it can be

The fire-escape which is stationed near the of St. George's Church ; 36. Newington, Obelisk, facing “The Elephant and Castle;' 37. Kenning taken off its wheels, in order to allow it to ton-cross; 88. Lambeth, by the Female Orphan enter the long gardens which here extend beAsylum; 39. Blackfriars’-road, corner of Great fore so many of the houses. The height atCharlotte-street; 40. Finsbury.circus, corner of tainable by these escapes varies from 487 feet West-street; 41. St. Mary at-Hill, corner of Roodlane; 42. Conduit-street

, corner of Great George, to 45 feet. A supplemental short ladder is street

now carried by most of them, which can be

at