When we remember that the fire-escapes often have to be raised above windows from which the flames are pouring forth, it will be seen how valuable is this double protection against the destruction of the canvas. The necessity for it was shown at a fire in Crawford Street, Marylebone, where an explosion took place which fired the canvas and let the conductor fall through just as he was rescuing an inmate,—an accident by which he was dreadfully injured. When people look up at these fire-escapes, they generally shudder at the idea of having to enter the bag, suspended at a height of forty feet from the ground; but in the hour of danger the terrified inmates never exhibit the slightest reluctance. Once in, they slide down the bulging canvas in the gentlest manner, without any of the rapidity that would be imagined from the almost perpendicular position in which it hangs.

The fire-escape which is stationed near the New Road is constructed so that it can be taken off its wheels, in order to allow it to enter the long gardens which here extend before so many of the houses. The height attainable by these escapes varies from 43½ feet to 45 feet. A supplemental short ladder is now carried by most of them, which can be quickly fitted on an emergency into the upper ladder, and increases the height to 50 feet.

The intrepidity of the conductors of these machines is quite astonishing. Familiarity with danger begets a coolness which enables them to place themselves in positions which would prove destructive to unpractised persons. As in most cases they are the prominent actors in a drama witnessed by a whole street-full of excited spectators, they are perhaps tempted by the cheers to risk themselves in a manner they would little dream of doing under other circumstances. In addition to such a stimulus they are rewarded with a silver medal, and with sums of money, for any extraordinary act of gallantry. Every instance of a daring rescue is entered in the society’s books, from which we have extracted a few examples, to show what enterprising fellows they are. At a fire which broke out in November, 1844, in a house in Hatton Garden, Conductor Sunshine on his arrival found the following state of things. On the second floor a man was sitting on the sill of one of the windows (there were four windows abreast), and on the third floor a man was hanging by his hands to the window-sill at the other extremity of the house-front. After having rescued the man on the second floor, he did not dare to raise his third-floor ladder, for fear of hitting the hanging man’s hands, and causing him to fall; accordingly, he stood upon the top rung of the second-floor ladder, and by so doing could just touch with his upstrained arms the poor fellow’s depending feet. In this position, having himself but a precarious hold of the window-frame beneath, his only footing being the topmost rung, he called to the man to drop when he told him, and discovered from his silence that he was deaf and dumb. Upon being tapped upon the foot, however, he let go, and the conductor managed, incredible as it may appear, to slip him down between himself and the wall on to the top of the ladder, and brought him safely to the ground. In the next case, Conductor Chapman was the hero of the scene, although the indomitable Sunshine was present. Having crossed the roofs of two adjoining out-buildings, Chapman managed to place his ladder against the second back floor of the house on fire. Having rescued a lady, he was obliged to retrace his steps over the roofs, as the fire was coming through the tiling. He could only cross by making a bridge of the short ladder; and scarcely had they cleared the premises when it fell in with a tremendous crash.

On another occasion this intrepid man having made an entrance into the second-floor window of a house in Tottenham-court Road, he was obliged to retreat twice, by reason of his lamp going out in the dense smoke. On the third trial it remained in, and enabled him to search the place. “I called out loud,” he says in his report, “and was answered by a kind of stifled cry. I rushed across the landing to the back room, and encountered a man, who groaned out, “O save my wife!” I groped about, and laid hold of a female, who fell with me, clasping two children in her arms. I took them up, and brought them to the escape, guiding the man to follow me, and placed them all safely in the canvas, from whence they reached the ground without any injury; and, finally, I came down myself, quite exhausted.” “We thought,” said a bystander, “when he jumped into the second-floor window, that we should not see him again alive; and I cannot tell you how he was cheered when he appeared with the woman and her two children.”

We shall content ourselves by quoting one more exploit from the Reports of the Society, the hero of which was Conductor Wood, who received a testimonial on vellum for the following service at a fire in Colchester-street, Whitechapel, on the 29th of April, 1854:—

“On his arrival, the fire was raging throughout the back of the house, and smoke issuing from every window; upon entering the first-floor room, part of which was on fire, he discovered five persons almost insensible from the excessive heat: he immediately descended the ladder with a woman on his shoulders, and holding a child by its night-clothes in his mouth; again ascended, re-entered the room, and having enabled the father to escape, had scarcely descended, with a child under each arm, when the whole building became enveloped in flames, rendering it impossible to attempt a rescue of the remainder of the unfortunate inmates.”

The rewards of the Society are not always won by their own men. William Trafford, police constable 344, for instance, had one of the Society’s medals presented to him, for “allowing two persons to drop upon him from the top windows of a house in College-street, Camden-town, and thereby enabling them to escape without material injury.” Nothing is said as to the damage done to poor Trafford by this act of self-devotion.

The real working value of the fire-escapes may be judged from the fact that, during the twenty years they have been on duty, they have attended no less than 2,041 fires, and rescued 214 human beings from destruction. To make this excellent scheme complete, only thirteen stations have now to be established, at a first cost of about eighty pounds each; the charitable could not give their money in a more worthy cause than in furnishing these districts, in which many thousands of inhabitants are still exposed to the most horrible of all deaths. To show that the usefulness of the Society has progressed with the number of their escapes, we need only adduce the evidence of the table in the next page, made up to the 25th of March of each year.

The fire-escapes, in addition to their own particular duty, are also of the greatest service to the firemen of the Brigade, as, by the use of their ladders, they are enabled to ascend to any window of a house, and to direct the jet directly upon the burning mass, instead of throwing it wild,—a matter of the greatest importance in extinguishing a fire: for unless you play upon the burning material, and thus cut off the flame at its root, you only uselessly deluge the building with water, which is, we believe, in many cases quite as destructive to stock and furniture as the fire it is intended to extinguish.

Year.Number of Stations.Fires
attended.		Lives
saved.
18458increased to1111613
184611"15967
184715"2113911
184821"2519717
184925"2622331
185026"2819810
185128"3022636
185230"3425325
185334"4026546
185440"4032828
Two since added.