After a night of it I was wont to return home about dawn, as few fires occur after that. On these occasions I felt deeply grateful to the keepers of small coffee-stalls, who, wheeling their entire shop and stock-in-trade in a barrow, supplied early workmen with cups of hot coffee at a halfpenny a piece, and slices of bread and butter for the same modest sum. At such times I came to know that “man wants but little here below,” if he only gets it hot and substantial.
Fire is such an important subject, and an element that any one may be called on so suddenly and unexpectedly to face, that, at the risk of being deemed presumptuous, I will, for a few minutes, turn aside from these reminiscences to put a few plain questions to my reader.
Has it ever occurred to you to think what you would do if your house took fire at night? Do you know of any other mode of exit from your house than by the front or back doors and the staircase? Have you a rope at home which would support a man’s weight, and extend from an upper window to the ground? Nothing easier than to get and keep such a rope. A few shillings would purchase it. Do you know how you would attempt to throw water on the walls of one of your rooms, if it were on fire near the ceiling? A tea-cup would be of no use! A sauce-pan would not be much better. As for buckets or basins, the strongest man could not heave such weights of water to the ceiling with any precision or effect. But there are garden hand-pumps in every seedsman’s shop with which a man could deluge his property with the greatest ease.
Do you know how to tie two blankets or sheets together, so that the knot shall not slip? Your life may one day depend on such a simple piece of knowledge.
Still further, do you know that in retreating from room to room before a fire you should shut doors and windows behind you to prevent the supply of air which feeds the flames? Are you aware that by creeping on your hands and knees, and keeping your head close to the ground, you can manage to breathe in a room where the smoke would suffocate you if you stood up?—also, that a wet sponge or handkerchief held over the mouth and nose will enable you to breathe with less difficulty in the midst of smoke?—Do you know that many persons, especially children, lose their lives by being forgotten by the inmates of a house in cases of fire, and that, if a fire came to you, you ought to see to it that every member of your household is present to take advantage of any means of escape that may be sent to you?
These subjects deserve to be considered thoughtfully by every one, especially by heads of families—not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of those whom God has committed to their care. For suppose that, (despite the improbability of such an event), your dwelling really did catch fire, how inconceivable would be the bitterness added to your despair, if, in the midst of gathering smoke and flames—with death staring you in the face, and rescue all but hopeless—you were compelled to feel that you and yours might have escaped the impending danger if you had only bestowed on fire-prevention, fire-extinction, and fire-escape a very little forethought and consideration.