It happened that the fire was very near where our friends were standing, so at the eager solicitations of the two boys, Mrs. Pitt consented to follow on and watch operations.
“So it really is a fire this time,” she said to Betty, as they hurried along. “We have very, very few in London, and when the brigade is out, it is generally only for exercise or practice. But, it will interest you and John to see how we fight a fire, and to observe whether the methods differ from yours.”
A building on Bishopsgate Street was really very much on fire when the party reached the spot, and the firemen were hard at work. Although the buildings are not high (or at least not according to American standards), the men use very strong ladders, which can be pulled out so that they will reach to great heights. But the queerest thing of all in John’s estimation was the way in which the people on the top floor of the building were rescued.
A long canvas tube was carried up a ladder by a fireman, who attached it to the frame of an upper window. The occupants of that floor were then slid one by one to the ground through this tube, being caught at the bottom by the firemen.
“Well, did you ever see anything like that!” cried John, amazed at the funny sight. “It’s great, I say! I’d like to try it!”
All the way up town, the talk was of fires. John had been tremendously interested in the English methods, and was planning to introduce the use of the canvas tube to his own city through a good Irish friend of his at a Boston fire-station.
“Honor bright, don’t you have many fires over here?” he demanded of Mrs. Pitt. “We have ’em all the time at home. It must be stupid here without ’em!”
“No, we really have very few,” Mrs. Pitt responded. “In winter, there are a number of small outbreaks, but those are very slight. You see, we burn soft coal, and if the chimney is not swept out quite regularly, the soot which gathers there is apt to get afire. When a chimney does have a blaze, the owner has to pay a fine of one pound, or five dollars, to make him remember his chimney. In olden times, perhaps two hundred and fifty years ago, there used to be a tax levied on every chimney in a house. There’s a curious old epitaph in a church-yard at Folkestone, which bears upon this subject. It reads something like this:
‘A house she hath, ’tis made in such good fashion,
That tenant n’re shall pay for reparation,
Nor will her landlord ever raise her rent,
Nor turn her out-of-doors for non-payment,
From chimney-money too, this house is free,
Of such a house who would not tenant be.’”
They all joined in a good laugh over this, but Betty remarked that she thought it was “more of an advertisement for a house than an epitaph.”