THE NEW HORSED FIRE-ESCAPE,

DESIGNED BY COMMANDER WELLS, CHIEF OFFICER OF THE METROPOLITAN FIRE-BRIGADE.

FIREMEN
AND THEIR EXPLOITS:

WITH SOME ACCOUNT
OF THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF FIRE-BRIGADES,
OF VARIOUS APPLIANCES FOR SAVING LIFE
AT FIRES AND EXTINGUISHING
THE FLAMES.

BY
F. M. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF "ENGINEERS AND THEIR TRIUMPHS," "MINERS AND
THEIR WORKS UNDERGROUND," ETC.

LONDON:
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO.,
8 & 9, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1899.

PREFACE.

The present volume, though complete in itself, forms one of a series seeking to describe in a popular and non-technical manner the Triumphs of Engineers. The same style has, therefore, been followed which was adopted in the preceding volumes. The profession of Engineering has exercised great influence on the work of Fire Extinguishment, as on some other things; and the subject is, therefore, not inappropriate to the series of books of which the volume forms part.

The story of the Fire-Engine begins in Egypt about a hundred and fifty years before Christ. Hero of Alexandria describes a contrivance called the "siphon used in conflagrations," and some persons are of opinion that he was not unacquainted with the use of the air-chest. But it was not until nearly two thousand years later—that is, about the close of the seventeenth century—that the air-chamber and the hose seem to have been brought into anything like general use,—if, indeed, the use can be called general even then.

Much of the story is involved in obscurity, or it may be there was little story to tell; but by the year 1726, Newsham had constructed satisfactory fire-engines in London; and Braithwaite the engineer—who with Ericsson constructed the "Novelty" to compete with Stephenson's "Rocket" at the locomotive contest at Rainhill in 1829—built a steam fire-engine about 1830, though it was not until thirty years, or more, later that the use of the machine became general.

As to Fire-Brigades, the Insurance Companies, which began to appear after the Great Fire of 1666, were wont to employ separate staffs of men to extinguish fires; but by the year 1833, the more important had united, and the London Fire-Brigade had been formed under the control of Mr. James Braidwood. Many provincial towns followed the metropolitan model in forming their brigades.

Together with the development of the Fire-Engine and of efficient brigades has been the introduction of various other appliances, such as Fire-Escapes, Chemical Extinctors, Water-Towers, and the great improvement in the water supply. Nothing is more striking in the history of conflagrations than the comparison between the dry state of the New River pipes at the Great Fire of 1666 and the copious flood of five million gallons poured into the city in a few hours by the same company to quench the great Cripplegate fire of November, 1897.

But, indeed, the whole realm of Fire Extinguishment is a world of constant improvement and strain after perfection. To describe something of these efforts, and trace out the main features of their story, is the object of the present volume.

CONTENTS.

OFF TO THE FIRE.

FIREMEN AND THEIR EXPLOITS.

CHAPTER I. THE HORSED FIRE-ESCAPE APPEARS. AN EXCITING SCENE.

"Shall we have a quiet night, Jack?"

"Can't say," replied Jack philosophically; "I take it as it comes."

Clang!

Even as he spoke, the electric fire-alarm rang through the silent station. The men sprang toward the stables, glancing at the bell-tablet as they ran.

The tablet revealed the name of the street whence the alarm had been sounded; and at the clang the horses tossed their heads and pawed the ground, mad to be off. They knew the sound of the alarm as well as the men themselves.

"Will it be a life-saving job, d'ye think, mate?"

"May be," was Jack's sententious reply; "you never know."

The horses were standing ready harnessed, and were unloosed at once. They were led to the engine, the traces hooked on, the crew, as the staff of firemen is called, took their places, and the doors in front of them were opened smartly by rope and pulley.

"Ready?"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Right away!"

In less than two minutes from the ringing of the alarm, the engine was rushing out of the station, and tearing along London streets with exciting clatter, the firemen shouting their warning cry, and sparks flying from the funnel. Soon the engine fire was roaring below, and the steam was hissing for its work.

How had the firemen obtained a blazing fire and hot steam so soon? When the engine was waiting in the station, a lighted gas-jet, kept near the boiler, maintained the water at a high temperature; and while the horses were being hooked on, a large fusee, called a "steam-match," had been promptly ignited, and dropped flaming down the funnel. The match fell through the water-tube boiler to the fuel in the fire-box below; the draught caused by the rush of the engine through the air helped the fire; and the water being already so hot, steam pressure soon arose.

"The new escape's close behind!" cried one of the men, as the engine hurried along.

Something, unusual then, to London streets was rapidly following the steamer. In the gloom, it looked like a dim spectral ladder projecting over the horses in front, and several men could be seen sitting on the carriage conveying it.

"She's a-comin' on pretty fast," exclaimed one of the men; "she travels as smart as an engine."

Indeed, the new escape was now so near, that it could be seen more clearly. It was securely mounted on a low car, and its large wheels hung over the end at the back, not far above the ground. Designed by Commander Wells, chief officer of the London Fire-Brigade, it was brought into use in the brigade in July, 1897.

But now it was nearing the fire, and cheers and cries rang loudly from the excited crowd gathered at the spot.

"Make way for the escape! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

No wonder the crowd were excited. On the second-floor window of a large building appeared three white, eager faces, framed by the dark sashes, and crying eagerly for help.

Cheer after cheer rent the air, as the escape drew up opposite, and was slipped from its car; then, resting on its own wheels, it was pitched near the burning building, and its ladders run up to the window. The policemen could scarce keep back the thronging crowd.

Away go the firemen up the rungs of the ladder, and amid continued cheers, and cries, and great excitement approach the sufferers in their peril.

"They've got one!" shouts an excited voice.

"Aye, and there's another!" cries a second spectator.

"They're all three saved!" vociferates a third; and loud cheers greet the firemen's triumph.

It was a smart piece of work; and with the rescued persons thrown over their shoulders in the efficient manner they are taught at drill, the firemen carefully descend the ladder one after the other, and amid shouts and plaudits arrive safely on the ground.

The flames dart out of the building more fiercely than ever, as if in anger at losing their prey; the glare and heat grow more intense; the smoke rolls off in dense volumes; the fire is raging furiously.

Engine after engine rushes fast to the spot, the loud, alarming cries of "Fire-ire! Fire-ire!" echoing shrilly along the lamp-lighted thoroughfares; fireman after fireman leaps from the arriving engines, and with their bright brass helmets flashing in the glare are quickly stationed round the huge conflagration.

The "brigade call" has been telephoned all round London, and from east and west, and north and south, engines and firemen have hurried to the spot. Steamers with sparks flying, steam hissing, and whistles shrieking; manuals with the clatter of their handles; hose-carts with their lengths of flexible pipes; and tall ladders of fire-escapes, useful, even when no life is to be saved, as high points of vantage whence firemen can direct streams of water straight into the raging fire,—all—all are here. One after another they arrive, until the word is passed that more than twenty engines and a hundred and twenty firemen are concentrated on the spot.

Hydrants also are at work. They are appliances, permanently fixed under the pathway, from which firemen can obtain a powerful pressure of water, ranging from thirty-five to seventy pounds per square inch. From the steamers and the hydrants the quantity of water poured on the huge fire is now immense, and the steam and smoke roll off in immense volumes.

Crash!

"There goes the glass!" cries a fireman; and a few moments later it is rumoured that one of the brigade has been badly cut in the hands. The skylight had broken and fallen upon him, showing that it is not only from heat and smoke that the men are likely to suffer, but also from falling parts of the burning building.

The huge fire is fought at every possible point. It is prevented from spreading to surrounding buildings by deluging them with water, and strenuous efforts are made to quench it at its source. Steadily in the growing light of day the firemen work on; but the morning had far advanced before the great conflagration was fully extinguished and the London Salvage Corps were left in possession of the ruined premises.

"Well, you've had your first big fire, Newall; how d'ye like it?"

"Oh, it's all right, mate; it's pretty hard work, but I don't mind it."

"'Tain't all over yet," said Jack cheerfully; "there's this 'ere hose to be scrubbed and cleaned, and hung up in the well to dry. I reckon it will be four or five o'clock before we can turn in."

Jack was right. The wet hose had to be suitably treated to keep it in good condition, and the engines carefully prepared for the next alarm that might arise; and when the men turned in to rest, they slept sound enough.

This story not only illustrates the work of the London Fire-Brigade, but also points to a notable fact in its history. That fact is the introduction of the horsed fire-escape. The first rescue in London by this valuable appliance took place on October 17th, 1898. There were, in fact, two disastrous fires raging at nearly the same time on that day, and the new appliance was used at one of these.

Early in the morning, a disastrous fire broke out in Manresa Road, Chelsea. The conflagration originated in the centre of a large timber-yard, and spread so rapidly that a very serious fire was soon in progress. Engines and firemen hurried up from various quarters, until sixteen steamers, three manuals, and more than a hundred men were on the spot. The fire was completely surrounded, and the enormous quantity of water poured upon the blazing wood soon took effect.

But before all the engines had left, news came that a still more serious fire had broken out in Oxford Street. The extensive premises of Messrs. E. Tautz & Co., wholesale tailors, were discovered to be in flames, and the alarm was brought to the fire-stations from various sources.

The Orchard Street fire-alarm rang into Manchester Square station, and resulted in the horsed escape being turned out; then another fire-alarm rang into Great Marlborough Street fire-station, and the horsed escape had hurried from this point also. The appliance was new, and for some time the men of the brigade had cherished a laudable ambition to be the first to use the escape in what they call a life-saving job. And it was only by an untoward chance, or simple fortune of war, that the men of the Manchester Square station, who were first on the spot, missed the coveted honour.

When they arrived on the scene, no sign of fire was visible in Oxford Street itself, and the firemen were pointed to North Row, one of the boundaries of the burning block behind. They made their way thither, searching for inmates, but were driven back by the fierce flames.

Meantime, the three persons sleeping on the premises—the foreman, Mr. Harry Smith, his wife, and their little son, aged six years—had been endeavouring to escape by the staircase, but had been driven back by the fire. Mr. Smith had been awakened by the dense smoke filling the room, and he aroused his wife at once and took the boy in his arms.

Not being able to escape by the staircase, they hurried to the front of the large block of buildings, shutting the doors after them as they went. So it happened that they appeared at the second-floor windows facing Oxford Street just as the horsed escape from Great Marlborough Street fire-station hurried up. A scene of great excitement followed. The firemen ran the ladders from the escape to the building, and brought down all three persons in safety; but Mrs. Smith unfortunately had suffered a burn on the left leg. It is probable that, but for the rapidity with which the horsed escapes arrived on the scene, the family might have suffered much more severely; for the fire was very fierce, and soon appeared in Oxford Street.

The honour, therefore, of the first rescue by the new horsed escape rests with the Great Marlborough Street station, though the efforts of their brave comrades of the Manchester Square station should always be remembered in connection therewith. Commander Wells appreciated this; for he telephoned a special message to Superintendent Smith, saying:

"Please let your men understand that I thoroughly appreciate and approve their action on arrival at the fire this morning, although the honour of rescue falls by the fortune of war to the second horse-escape."

The fire proved very disastrous, and a large force was speedily concentrated. It was eventually subdued; but it was about two o'clock in the afternoon before the brigade were able to leave, a large warehouse belonging to Messrs. Peel & Co., boot-makers, being also involved, and other buildings more or less damaged.

The horsed fire-escape, which was found so useful on this occasion, is but one among several appliances for saving life and fighting the fire. These appliances are worked by highly-trained brigades of firemen, whose efficient organization, well-considered methods, and ingenious apparatus form one of the remarkable features of the time.

They did not reach their present position in a day. Indeed, a stirring story of human effort and of high-spirited enterprise lies behind the well-equipped brigades of the time. Step by step men have won great victories over difficulty and danger; step by step they have profited by terrible disasters, which have spurred them on to fresh efforts.

What, then, is this story of the fight against fire? How have the fire-services of the day reached their present great position?

CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY. HERO'S "SIPHON." HOW THE ANCIENTS STROVE TO EXTINGUISH FIRES.

No one knows who invented the modern fire-engine.

The earliest machine, so far as is generally known, was described by Hero of Alexandria about a hundred and fifty years before Christ. He called it "the siphon used in conflagrations"; and it seems to have been originated by Ctesibius, a Greek mechanician living in Egypt, whose pupil Hero became.

It is very interesting to notice how this contrivance worked. It was fitted with two cylinders, each having a piston connected by a beam. This beam raised and lowered each piston alternately, and with the help of valves—which only opened the way of the jet—propelled water to the fire, but not continuously. The method must have proved very inefficient, especially when compared with the constant stream thrown by the modern fire-engine. Indeed, it is this power to project a steady and continuous stream which chiefly differentiates the modern fire-engine from such machines as Hero's siphon.

How far this siphon or any similar contrivance was used in ancient times we cannot say; but no doubt buckets in some form or other were the first appliances used for extinguishing conflagrations. Whenever mankind saw anything valuable burning, the first impulse would be to stamp it out, or quench the flame by throwing water on it; and the water would be conveyed by the readiest receptacle to hand; then when men had discovered the use of the pump, or the squirt, they would naturally endeavour to turn these appliances to account.

In some places the use of water-buckets was organized. Juvenal alludes to the instructions of the opulent Licinus, who bade his "servants watch by night, the water-buckets being set ready"; the wealthy man fearing "for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian column, and his ivory and broad tortoise-shell."

Then Pliny and Juvenal use a term—hama—which signifies an appliance for extinguishing fires; but the true rendering seems to be in dispute, some translators being content to describe it simply as a water-vessel. Pliny the Younger refers to siphones, or pipes, being employed to extinguish fires; but we do not know how they were used, or whether they resembled Hero's siphon.

In fact, the earliest references to fire-engines by Roman writers are regarded by some as being merely allusions to aqueduct-pipes for bringing water to houses, rather than to a special appliance. And from Seneca's remark, "that owing to the height of the houses in Rome it was impossible to save them when they took fire," we may gather that any appliances that may have been in use were very inefficient.

A curious primitive contrivance is described by Apollodorus, who was architect to Trajan. It consisted of leathern bags or bottles, having pipes attached; and when the bottles were squeezed, the water gushed through the pipes to extinguish the flames. Augustus was so enterprising as to organize seven bands of firemen, each of which protected two districts of Rome. Each band was in charge of a tribunus, or captain, and the whole force was under a præfectum vigilum, or prefect of the watch; though what apparatus they employed—whether buckets or pipe-bags, syringes or Hero's siphon—we do not know.

But these appliances, or some of them, were no doubt in use at the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 66. In July of that year—the tenth of the reign of the infamous Emperor Nero—two-thirds of the city was destroyed. The fire broke out at a number of wooden shops built against the side of the great Circus, and near to the low-lying ground between the Palatine and the Cælian Hills. The east wind blew the flames onward to the corner of the Palatine Hill, and there the fire blazed in two directions. It gained such enormous power, that stonework split and fell before it like glass, and building after building succumbed, until at one point it was only stopped by the river, and at another by frowning cliffs.

For six awful days and seven nights the fire raged, and then, when it was supposed to have been extinguished, it burst forth again for three more days. The sight must have been appalling. We can picture the huge sheets and tongues of flame sweeping ever onward, the fearful heat, and the immense volumes of smoke which mounted upward and obscured the sky.

The panic-stricken people fled to the imperial gardens, but whispered that Nero himself had originated the fire. To divert suspicion, he spread reports that the Christians were the culprits; and they were treated with atrocious cruelty, some being wrapped in fabric covered with pitch and burnt in the Emperor's grounds. The guilt of Nero remains a moot point; but he seems to have acted with some amount of liberality to the sufferers, though his acts of humanity did not free his name from the foul suspicion.

The conflagration itself stands out as one of the most terrible in history. Before its furious rage the capable Romans seem to have been reduced to impotence. Their organization, if they had any, seems to have been powerless; and their appliances, if they used any, seem to have been worthless.

We are entitled to draw the deduction that they had no machine capable of throwing a steady, continuous stream from a comparatively safe distance. No band of men, however strong and determined, could have stood their ground sufficiently near the fierce fire to throw water from buckets, pipe-bags, or even portable pumps. For small fires they might prove of service, if employed early; but for large conflagrations they would be worthless. And if Rome, the Mistress of the World, was so ill-provided, what must have been the condition of other places?

We may infer, therefore, that the means of fire extinction in the ancient world were miserably inadequate.

Had mediæval Europe anything better to show?

CHAPTER III. IN MEDIÆVAL DAYS. AN EPOCH-MAKING FIRE.

"Prithee, good master, what's o' fire?"

"A baker's house they say, name of Farryner."

"Faith! it's in Pudding Lane, nigh Fish Street Hill," quoth another spectator, coming up. "They say the oven was heated overmuch."

"It's an old house, and a poor one," said another speaker. "'Twill burn like touchwood this dry weather."

"Aye, it have been dry this August, sure enow; and I reckon the rain won't quench it to-night." And the speaker looked up to the starlit sky, where never a cloud could be seen.

"Have they the squirts at work, good-man?"

"Aye, no doubt. 'Twill be quenched by morning, neighbour. Faith! 'tis just an old worm-eaten house ablaze, and that's the tale of it."

But it was not "the tale of it." A strong east wind was blowing, and the hungry flames spread quickly to neighbouring buildings. These houses were old and partly decayed, and filled with combustible material, such as oil, pitch, and hemp used in shipwright's work. In a comparatively short time the ward of Billingsgate was all ablaze, and the fierce fire, roaring along Thames Street, attacked St. Magnus Church at Bridgefoot.

Before the night was far spent, fire-bells were clashing loudly from the steeples, alarming cries of "Fire! Fire!" resounded through the streets, and numbers of people in the old narrow-laned city of London were rushing half dressed from their beds.

It was the night of Saturday, September 2nd, 1666, a night ever memorable in the history of London. About ten o'clock, any lingerers on London Bridge—where houses were then built—might have seen a bright flame shoot upward to the north. They probably conversed as we have described, and retired to bed. But the fire spread from the baker's shop, as we have seen, and the confusion and uproar of that terrible night grew ever more apace.

Half-dazed persons crowded the streets, encumbered with household goods, and the narrow thoroughfares soon became choked with the struggling throng. But the flames seized upon the goods, and the panic-stricken people fled for their lives before the fierce attack. The lurid light fell on their white faces, and the terrible crackling and roaring of the flames mingled with their shrieks and shouts as they hurried along. Now the night would be obscured by dense clouds of thick smoke, and anon the fire would flash forth again more luridly than ever.

To add to the alarm, the cry would ring through the streets, or would be passed from mouth to mouth, that the pipes of the New River Company—then recently laid—were found to be dry. With the suspicion of Romanist plots prevailing, the scarcity of water and the origin of the fire were put down to fanatical incendiaries; or, as an old writer quaintly expressed it, "This doth smell of a popish design."

When the next morning dawned, the terrible conflagration, so far from having been extinguished, was raging furiously; the little jets and bucketsful of water, if any had been used, proved of no avail; and the narrow streets became, as it were, great sheets of flame.

But was nothing done to extinguish the fire? What appliances would the Londoners have had?

Here, perhaps, in the early hours of the conflagration, you might have seen a group of three men at the corner of a street working a hand-squirt. This instrument was of brass, and measured about 3 feet long. Two men held it by a handle on each side; and when the nozzle had been dipped into a bucket or a cistern near, and the water had flowed in, they would raise the squirt, while the third man pushed up the piston to discharge the water. The squirt might hold about four quarts of water.

A CITY FIRE TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

If one man worked the squirt, he would hold it up by the handles, and push the end of the piston, which was generally guarded by a button, against his chest. But, at the best, it is obvious that the hand-squirt was a very inadequate contrivance.

Not far distant you might also have seen a similar squirt, mounted in a wheeled reservoir or cistern, the pistons, perhaps, worked by levers; and, possibly, in yet another street you might have noticed a pump of some kind, also working in a cistern; while here and there you might have come upon lines of persons passing buckets from hand to hand, bringing water either from the wells in the city, or from the river, or actually throwing water on the fire. Such were the appliances which we gather were then used for extinguishing fires.

But such contrivances as were then in the neighbourhood of Fish Street Hill appear to have been burnt before they could be used, and the people seem to have been too paralyzed with terror to have attempted any efforts.

The suggestion was made to pull down houses, so as to create gaps over which the fire could not pass; and this suggestion no doubt indicates one of the methods of former days. But the method was not at first successful on this occasion.

Thus, Pepys, in his Diary, tells us, under date of the Sunday: "At last [I] met my Lord Mayor in Canning Street, like a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the King's message [to pull down houses before the fire] he cried, like a fainting woman, 'Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.'" This is a graphic little picture of the bewilderment of the people; and Pepys goes on to say that, as he walked home, he saw "people all almost distracted, and no manner of means used to quench the fire."

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON (FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT).

In a similar manner, another famous eye-witness, John Evelyn, notes in his Diary that "some stout seamen proposed, early enough to have saved nearly the whole city," the destruction of houses to make a wide gap; "but this some tenacious and avaricious men, aldermen, etc., would not permit, because their houses must have been of the first."

The main idea, therefore, of extinguishing the fire seems to have lain in the pulling down of houses to produce a wide gap over which the fire could not pass. But at first the civic authorities shrank from such bold measures. On Sunday, then, the flames were rushing fiercely onward, the ancient city echoing to their roaring and to the cries and shrieks of the populace. The houses by London Bridge, in Thames Street, and the neighbourhood were but heaps of smouldering ruins. The homeless people sought refuge in the fields outside the city by Islington and Highgate, and the city train-bands were placed under arms to watch for incendiaries; while, as if the horror of the terrible fire was not enough, numbers of ruffians were found engaged in the dastardly work of plunder. The clanging of the fire-bells, the crackling of the huge fire, the cries and curses of the people, made such a frightful din as can scarce be imagined; while many churches, attended on the previous Sunday by quiet worshippers, were now blazing in the fire.

That night the scene was appalling, and yet magnificent. An immense sheet of fire rose to the sky, rendering the heavens for miles like a vast lurid dome. The conflagration flamed a whole mile in diameter, hundreds of buildings were burning, and the high wind bent the huge flames into a myriad curious shapes, and bore great flakes of fire on to the roofs of other houses, kindling fresh flames as they fell. For ten miles distant the country was illumined as at noonday, while the smoke rolled, it is said, for fifty miles.

Evelyn describes the scene in his Diary, under date September 3rd: "I had public prayers at home. The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and son and went to the Bankside in Southwark, where we beheld the dismal spectacle, the whole city in dreadful flames near the water-side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames Street, and upwards towards Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consumed: and so returned exceeding astonished what would become of the rest.

"The fire having continued all this night (if I may call that night which was light as day for ten miles round about, after a dreadful manner) when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind in a very dry season; I went on foot to the same place, and saw the whole south part of the city burning from Cheapside to the Thames and all along Cornhill.... Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on the other [side], the carts, etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor be outdone till the universal conflagration of it! All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above ten thousand houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like a hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflamed that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for near two miles in length and one in breadth. The clouds also of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation, near fifty-six miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoon burning, a resemblance of Sodom or the last day."

On Monday the Royal Exchange perished in the sea of flame. By evening Cheapside had fallen, and beside the water's edge it was blazing in Fleet Street; while it had also burned backward, even against the wind, along the eastern part of Thames Street, toward Tower Hill. The heat was so terrible that persons could not approach within a furlong, while the very pathways were glowing with fiery heat. Some persons chartered barges and boats, and, filling them with such property as they could save, sent them down the Thames. Others paid large sums for carts to convey property far beyond the city walls. A piteous exodus of sick and sound, aged and young, crawled or fled to the spacious fields beyond the gates. The ground was strewn with movables for miles, and tents were erected to shelter the burned-out multitude.

At length St. Paul's succumbed. It had stood tall and strong in the space of its churchyard, lifting its head loftily amid the billows of flame; but at last the terrible fire, driven toward it by the east wind, lapped the roof, and seized some scaffold-poles standing around. The lead on the roof melted in the fierce heat, and ran down the walls in streams; the stones split, and pieces flew off with reports like cannon-shots; and beams fell crashing like thunder to the ground.

Evelyn notes, under date September 4th: "The burning still rages, and it was now gotten as far as the Inner Temple; all Fleet Street, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Street now flaming, and most of it reduced to ashes; the stones of Paul's flew like granados, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream, and the very pavements glowing with fiery redness, so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them, and the demolition had stopped all the passages, so that no help could be applied. The eastern wind still more impetuously driving the flames forward. Nothing but the almighty power of God was able to stop them, for vain was the help of man."

On the eastern side of St. Paul's, the old Guildhall fell to the fire. On Tuesday night, it was, says a contemporary writer, the Rev. Thomas Vincent, in a little volume published a year afterwards, "a fearfull spectacle, which stood the whole body of it together in view, for several hours together, after the fire had taken it, without flames (I suppose because the timber was such solid oake), in a bright shining coale as if it had been a Pallace of gold, or a great building of burnished brass."

The fire had now become several miles in circumference. It had reached the Temple at the western end of Fleet Street by the river, and was blazing up by Fetter Lane to Holborn; then backward, its course lay along Snow Hill, Newgate Street—Newgate Prison being consumed—and so past the Guildhall and Coleman Street, on to Bishopsgate Street and Leadenhall Street. It seemed as though all London would be burnt, and that it would spread westward even to Whitehall and Westminster Abbey.

But now the King (Charles II.) and his brother the Duke of York and their courtiers were fully aroused; and it must have become clear to even the meanest intelligence that houses must be blown down on an extensive scale, in order to create large gaps over which the fire could not pass. All through Tuesday night, therefore, the sound of explosions mingled with the roaring of the fire.

By the assistance of soldiers, and by the influence of the royal personages, buildings were blown up by gunpowder in the neighbourhood of Temple Bar, which then, of course, spanned the western end of Fleet Street; at Pye Corner near the entrance to Smithfield, and also at other points of vantage. These bold means, together, no doubt, with the falling of the wind, and also the presence of some strong brick buildings, as by the Temple, checked and stopped the fire. Some began now to bestir themselves, "who hitherto," remarks Evelyn, "had stood as men intoxicated with their hands across." On the Wednesday, therefore, the fire extended no farther west than the Temple, and no farther north than Pye Corner near Smithfield; but within this area it still burned, and the heat was still so great that no one would venture near it.

During the Wednesday, the King was most energetic. He journeyed round the fire twice, and kept workers at their posts, and assisted in providing food and shelter for the people. Orders were sent into the country for provisions and tents, and also for boards wherewith to build temporary dwellings. On Thursday the Great Fire was everywhere extinguished; but on Friday the ruins were still smouldering and smoking, and the ground so hot that a pedestrian could not stand still for long on one spot. From St. Paul's Churchyard, where the ground rises to about the greatest height in the old city, the eye would range over a terrible picture of widespread destruction, from the Temple to the Tower and from the Thames to Smithfield. Two hundred thousand homeless persons were camping out, or lying beside such household goods as they had been able to save, in the fields by Islington and Highgate. It has been computed that no fewer than 13,200 houses, 89 churches, including St. Paul's, 400 streets, and several public buildings, together with four stone bridges and three of the city gates, etc., were destroyed, while the fire swept over an area of 436 acres.

Now, in connection with this great calamity, we cannot find any appliance at work corresponding to our modern fire-engine. The inhabitants of London seem to have been almost, if not quite, as badly provided against fire as Rome in the days of Nero.

In fact, the chief protection in early days in England seems to have been a practice of the old proverb that prevention is better than cure, care being exercised to regulate the fires used for domestic purposes: we see an instance in the arrangement of the curfew-bell, or couvre-feu, a bell to extinguish all fires at eight at night. Still, when conflagrations did occur, we may suppose that buckets and hand-squirts, as soon as mankind came to construct them, were the appliances used.

Entries for fire-extinguishing machines of some sort have been found in the accounts of many German towns: for instance, in the building accounts of Augsburg for 1518, "instruments of fire" or "water-syringes" are mentioned.

Fires appear to have been very frequent in Germany in the latter part of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century. And though we do not know much of the contrivances used in Europe in the Middle Ages, it is not until 1657 that we have any reliable record of a machine at all resembling Hero's siphon on the one hand, or the modern fire-engine on the other.

This record is given by Caspar Schott, a Jesuit, and tells of an engine constructed by Hautsch of Nuremberg, a city long famous for mechanical contrivances. The machine was really a large water-cistern drawn on a wheeled car, or sledge; and the secret of its propulsive power, Schott supposes was a horizontal cylinder containing a piston and producing an action like a pump. The cistern measured 8 feet long by 4 feet high, and 2 feet wide; its small width being probably designed for entering narrow streets. It was operated by twenty-eight men, and it forced a stream of water an inch thick to a height of about eighty feet. Hautsch desired to keep the methods of its construction secret; but, apparently, it was not furnished with the important air-chamber, and does not seem to have differed very materially from Hero's siphon. Schott also says he had seen one forty years before at Königshofen.

Notwithstanding, therefore, the danger of great conflagrations, mankind does not seem to have made much progress in the construction of fire-engines from the days of Ctesibius until the time of Charles II., a period of about eighteen hundred years. On the other hand, we must remember that syringes and water-buckets can be of very great service when promptly and efficiently used. Even to-day London firemen find similar appliances of great value for small conflagrations in rooms.

But we get a vivid little picture of the helplessness of even the seventeenth-century public before a fire of any size, in a description left by Wallington of a fire on Old London Bridge in 1633. Houses were then built on the bridge, and Wallington says: "All the conduits near were opened, and the pipes that carried the water through the streets were cut open, and the water swept down with brooms with help enough; but it was the will of God it should not prevail. For the three engines which are such excellent things that nothing that ever was devised could do so much good, yet none of them did prosper, for they were all broken, and the tide was very low that they could get no water, and the pipes that were cut yielded but littel. Some ladders were broke to the hurt of many; for several had their legges broke, some their arms; and some their ribes, and many lost their lives." More than fifty houses, we may add, were destroyed by this fire.

Of what character were the engines to which he refers we cannot tell. We do not know whether any engine like Hautsch's was established in London at this time, or at the date of the Great Fire; but if so, it was not apparently much in vogue. It must be remembered that the term "engine" was applied indiscriminately to any sort of mechanical contrivance, and even to a skilful plan or method (Shakespeare uses the word to designate an instrument of torture); if, therefore, the word is used for a fire-extinguishing appliance by any old writer, it does not follow that the so-called engine would resemble Hautsch's machine or a modern fire-engine.

FIRE-EXTINGUISHING APPLIANCES, SQUIRTS, BUCKETS, ETC., A.D. 1667.

Judging from some Instructions of the Corporation after the fire, hand-squirts and ladders and buckets were still chiefly relied upon in 1668. The Instructions are, moreover, interesting, as showing what action the Corporation took after the Great Fire.

The city was divided into four districts, each of which was to be furnished with eight hundred leathern buckets, fifty ladders varying in sizes from 16 to 42 feet long, also "so many hand-squirts of brass as will furnish two for every parish, four-and-twenty pickaxe-sledges, and forty shod shovels." Further, each of the twelve companies was to provide thirty buckets, one engine, six pickaxe-sledges, three ladders, and two hand-squirts of brass. Again, "all the other inferior companies" were to provide similar appliances; and aldermen were likewise to provide buckets and hand-squirts of brass. The pickaxes and shovels were for use in demolishing houses and walls if necessary, or dealing with ruins; and though some kind of engine is mentioned, we know not whether it was a hand-squirt mounted in a cistern, or some sort of portable pump.

We may regard these regulations, however, as fixing for us the hand-squirt and the bucket as the principal means of fire extinguishment in Britain up to that date.

But now a great development was at hand, and a new chapter was to commence in the story.

CHAPTER IV. THE PEARL-BUTTON MAKER'S CONTRIVANCE. THE MODERN FIRE-ENGINE.

How to force a continuous stream of water on the fire!

That was the problem which puzzled an unknown inventor about the year 1675. He probably saw that hitherto the appliances for extinguishing conflagrations failed at this point, and we may suppose that he cudgelled his brains to hit upon the right remedy.

Then one day, no one seems to know when, he thought of inventing, or adapting, the compressed air-chamber to a sort of portable pump, and, behold!—

The Modern Fire-Engine was born!

The invention was introduced, probably, after the Great Fire, because authorities describe it as first mentioned in the French Journal des Savans in 1675, and Perrault states that an engine with an air-chamber was kept at Paris for the protection of the Royal Library in 1684. If, therefore, Hero knew of the air-chamber, as some assert, it does not appear to have been much used. But probably the great disaster in London stirred invention, and the addition of the air-chamber was the result. It may not, however, have been a distinct invention, for an air-chamber had been found of great value in various hydraulic machines.

What, then, is this invention, and what is its great value to a fire-engine?

Briefly, it enables a steady and continuous stream of water to be thrown on a fire. It is the vital principle of the modern fire-engine, and renders it distinctly different from all squirts, syringes, and portable pumps preceding it. Instead of an unequal and intermittent supply, sometimes, no doubt, falling far short of the fire, we have now a persistent stream, which can be continuously directed to any point, in reach, with precision and efficiency.

How, then, are these results obtained? How does the air-chamber work?

It depends on the elasticity and power of compressed air. The water, when drawn from the source of supply by two pistons, working alternately, is driven into a strong chamber filled with air. The air becomes compressed, and is driven to one part of the chamber; but when it is forced back to occupy about one-third of the whole space, the air is so compressed that, like the proverbial worm which will turn at last, it exerts a pressure on the water which had been driving it back. If the water had no means of escape, the chamber would soon burst; but the water finds its way through the delivery-hose. If the hose issue from the top of the chamber, it is fitted with a connecting pipe reaching nearly to the bottom to prevent any escape of air.

Now, as long as the pumps force the water into the air-chamber to the necessary level—that is, to about two-thirds of the space—the pressure is practically continuous, and thus a constant jet of water is maintained through the hose. The ordinary pressure of air is about 14·7 pounds per square inch; and when compressed to one-half its usual bulk, its elasticity or power of pressure is doubled, and of course is rendered greater if still further compressed.

This power, then, of the compressibility and elasticity of air is the secret of the fire-engine air-chamber; but though introduced about 1675, it was not until 1720 that such engines seem to have become more general. About that date, Leupold built engines in Germany with a strongly-soldered copper chest, and one piston and cylinder, the machine throwing a continuous and steady jet of water some twenty or thirty feet high.

In the meantime, what was being done in England?

Here again the story is obscure; but we imagine the course of events to have been something like this:

In the dismal days after the Great Fire, people began to cast about for means to prevent a recurrence of so widespread and terrible a calamity. Fire-insurance offices were organized, and they undertook the extinguishment of fires. It is not unreasonable to suppose that in some form—perhaps by offering prizes, perhaps by simply calling attention to the need for improvement, perhaps by disseminating information such as of the engine mentioned by Perrault at Paris—these offices stimulated invention; perhaps the memory of the Great Fire was enough to stir ingenious effort without their aid.

Now, there was a pearl-button maker named Newsham, at Cloth Fair, not far distant from Pye Corner, who obtained patents for improvements in fire-engines in 1721, and again in 1725; while the Daily Journal of April 7th, 1726, gives a report of one of his engines which discharged water as high as the grasshopper on the Royal Exchange. This apparently was not only due to the great compression of air in the air-chamber, but also to the peculiar shape he gave to the nozzle of the jet; and it is said he was able to throw water to a height of a hundred and thirty feet or more.

In France a man named Perier seems to have been busy with fire-engines, though how far he worked independently of others we cannot tell.

The hose and suction-pipe are said to have been invented by two men named Van der Hide, inspectors of fire-extinguishing machines at Amsterdam about 1670. The hose was of leather, and enabled the water to be discharged close to the fire. It is worthy of note that this invention also appears to have been after the Great Fire of London.

Remembering, therefore, that Newsham was probably indebted to others for the important air-chamber and flexible leathern hose—though how far he was indebted we cannot say—we must regard him as the Father of the Modern Fire-Engine in England. Especially so, as his improvements have been regarded as in advance of all others in their variety and value. It is also worthy of note that the first fire-engines in the United States were of his construction.

Little is known of Newsham's life. The reasons leading him, a maker of pearl buttons, to turn his attention to fire-engine improvement are not clear. At his death in 1743, the undertaking passed by bequest to his son. The son died about a year after his father, and the business then came into the hands of his wife and cousin George Ragg, also by bequest; and the name of the firm became Newsham & Ragg.

One of Newsham's engines may be seen in the South Kensington Museum to-day, having been presented to that institution by the corporation of Dartmouth. The pump-barrels will be found to measure 4½ inches in diameter, with a piston-stroke of 8½ inches. The original instructions are still attached, and are protected by a piece of horn.

The general construction of Newsham's engines appears to have been something like this:

The body, which was long and narrow, measured about 9 feet by 3 feet broad; this shape enabled it to be wheeled in narrow streets, and even through doorways. Along the lower part of the body, which was swung on wheels, ran a pipe of metal, which the water entered from a feed-pipe. The feed-pipe was intended to be connected with a source of supply; but if this failed, a cistern, attached to the body of the engine, could be filled by buckets, while a strainer was placed at the junction between the cistern and the interior pipe to prevent dirt or gravel from entering it.

EARLY MANUAL FIRE-ENGINE.

On the top of the body was built a superstructure, which looked like a high box—greater in height than in breadth, and larger at the top than at the bottom. This box contained the all-important air-chamber and the pumps. The water in the interior pipe was forced into the air-chamber by the two pumps, and then thrown on the fire through a pipe connected with a hose of leather projecting from the top of the air-chamber. This pipe descended within the chamber almost to the bottom, so that when water was pumped into the air-chamber it flowed round the bottom of the pipe, and prevented any ingress or egress of air. As the water rose, the air already in the chamber became compressed in the top part of the chamber, and in turn exerted its power on the water.

The pumps were worked by levers, one on each side of the engine, and alternately raised and lowered by the men operating the machine; while this manual-power was much increased by one or two men working treadles connected with the levers, and throwing the weight of the body on each treadle alternately.

The principle of the force-pump may be thus briefly explained:

When a tight-fitting piston working in a cylinder is drawn upward, the air in the cylinder is drawn up also, and a partial vacuum created; if the cylinder is connected with water not too far distant by a pipe, the water will then rush upward to fill the vacuum. Then, if the bottom of the cylinder be fitted with a valve opening upward only, it is closed when the piston is pushed down again; and the water would burst the cylinder, if enough power were applied to the piston, but escape is afforded along another pipe as an outlet, which in the case of the fire-engine opens into the air-chamber, and which is opened and closed by another valve. Thus is the water not only raised from the source of supply, but is forced along another channel.

And the modern fire-engine—which we date from Newsham's engines in England about 1726—is a combination of the principles of the force-pump and of the air-chamber, which acts by reason of the great elasticity of compressed air.

Other inventors made improvements as well as Newsham, namely, Dickenson, Bramah, Furst, Rowntree, and others, though the differences were chiefly in details. An engraving mentioned in an old work of reference sets forth that a London merchant named John Lofting was the patentee and inventor of the fire-engine. His invention must have been since the Great Fire, because the Monument is depicted in one corner of the engraving and the Royal Exchange in another. Rowntree made an engine for the Sun and some other fire-offices, which protected the feed-pipe more efficiently from mud and gravel; and Bramah devised a hemispherical perforated nozzle, which distributed water in all directions, so that the ceilings, sides, and floor of a room would become equally drenched.

Bramah also applied the rotary principle to the fire-engine. He studied the principles of hydraulics, and introduced many improvements into machinery for pumping, a rotary principle being one of them. He attained this object by changing the form of the cylinder and piston, the part acting directly on the water being shaped as a "slider," and working round a cavity in form of a cylinder, and maintained in its place by a groove. He applied the rotative principle to many objects, one being the fire-engine. His fire-engine was patented in 1793; but we cannot discover that it changed any vital principle of the machine, which, as we have seen, consists in essence of a movable force-pump, steadied and strengthened by a compressed air-chamber and a flexible delivery-hose.

Joseph Bramah, however, is doubtless best known to fame as the inventor of the hydraulic press, though he is also celebrated for the safety-lock which bears his name. He was a farmer's son, and was born at Stainborough in Yorkshire in 1748; but an accident rendering him lame, he was apprenticed to a carpenter. Engaging in business as a cabinet-maker in London, he was employed one day to fit up some sanitary appliances, and their imperfections led him to devise improvements. He took out his first patent in 1778 and this contrivance proved to be the first of a long series. His lock followed, and then, assisted in one detail by Henry Maudslay, he introduced his hydraulic press, a machine which he foresaw was capable of immense development.

Several of his improvements are concerned with water, such as contrivances connected with pumps and fire-engines, and with building boilers for steam-engines. It is also said he was one of the first proposers of the screw-propeller for steamships. Altogether, he was the author of eighteen patents; though it has been pointed out that he improved and applied the inventions of others, rather than originated the whole thing himself. While he contributed improvements to the fire-engine, the vital principle of the air-chamber and the flexible hose remained the same. Up to about the year 1832, the larger engines generally in use in London seem to have thrown some eighty-eight gallons a minute from fifty to seventy feet high.

The next notable development was the application of steam to work the force-pumps. But this addition, which was made about 1830 by John Braithwaite, also did not alter the principle of the air-chamber.

John Braithwaite came of an engineering family. He was born in 1797, the third son of John Braithwaite, the constructor of one of the first diving-bells. The ancestors of the Braithwaites had conducted an engineer's business, or something analogous to it, at St. Albans ever since the year 1695.

The younger John entered his father's business, and from 1823, after his father and brother died, conducted it alone. Those were the days when steam was coming into vogue, and he began to manufacture high-pressure steam-engines. Together with Ericsson, he constructed the "Novelty," the locomotive which competed in the famous railway-engine contest at Rainhill in 1829, when Stephenson's "Rocket" won the prize. Braithwaite's engine, though it did not fulfil all the conditions of the competition, yet is said by some to have been the first locomotive to run a mile a minute—or rather more, for it is held to have covered a mile in fifty-six seconds. He used a bellows to fan the fire; and in his steam fire-engine, he also employed bellows, though on one day of the Rainhill contest the failure of the bellows rendered the locomotive incapable of doing work.

In the fire-engine, the bellows were worked by the wheels of the machine, and eighteen or twenty minutes were required to raise the steam. At the present time, a hundred pounds of steam can be raised in five minutes in the biggest engine of the London Brigade, this result being due, in one respect at least, to the use of water-tube boilers.

Braithwaite's engine of 1830 was fitted with an upright boiler, and was of scarcely six horse-power; but, nevertheless, it forced about fifteen gallons of water per minute from eighty to ninety feet high. The pistons for the steam and water respectively were on opposite ends of the same rod, that for steam being 7 inches in diameter, and for the water 6½ inches, and both having a stroke of 16 inches.

The engine was successful in its day. During an hour's work, it would throw between thirty and forty tons of water on a fire; while another engine, also made by Braithwaite, threw the larger quantity of ninety tons an hour.

The steam fire-engine was first used at the burning of the Argyle Rooms in London in 1830; it was also used at the fire of the English Opera-House in the same year, and at the great fire at the Houses of Parliament in 1834. But, curiously enough, a great prejudice existed against it, and the engine was at length destroyed by a London mob. The fire-brigade were also against it. So Braithwaite gave it up; but he built a few others, one at least being for Berlin, where it seems to have given great satisfaction.

Braithwaite, who became engineer-in-chief to the Eastern Counties Railway, also applied steam to a floating fire-engine, and constructed the machinery so that the power could be rapidly changed from propelling the vessel to operating the pumps.

The brigade could not long disregard the use of steam. In 1852, their manual-float was altered to a steamer, the alterations being made by Messrs. Shand & Mason. Six years later, the firm made a land steam fire-engine, which, however, was sent to St. Petersburg; and then in 1860—thirty years after Braithwaite had introduced the machine—the London Brigade hired one for a year. The experiment was successful, and a steam fire-engine was purchased from the same makers. But only two steam fire-engines were at work at the great Tooley Street fire.

Then, in July, 1863, a steam fire-engine competition took place at the Crystal Palace, the trials lasting three days. Lord Sutherland was chairman, and Captain Shaw, who was then chief of the London Brigade, was honorary secretary of the competition committee. In the result, Merryweather & Son won the first prize in the large-class engine, and Shand & Mason the second prize. Shand & Mason also took the first prize in the small class, and Lee & Co. the second prize in the small class. The value of the steam fire-engine was fully established.

At the present time, Messrs. Shand & Mason have an engine capable of throwing a thousand gallons a minute; while one of the water-floats of the London Brigade will throw thirteen hundred and fifty gallons a minute. These powerful machines form a striking development of Newsham's engine of 1726, and afford a remarkable contrast to the old fire-quenching appliances of former times.

But while the development of the modern fire-engine had been proceeding, a not less remarkable organization of firemen had been growing. It arose in a very singular, and yet under the circumstances a not unnatural, manner. And to this part of the story we must now turn our attention.

CHAPTER V. EXTINGUISHMENT BY COMPANY. THE BEGINNINGS OF FIRE INSURANCE.

"Cannot provision be made against loss by fire?"

Looking at the terrible ruin caused in 1666, prudent men would naturally begin to ask this question. And some enterprising individual declared that a scheme must be launched whereby such provision might be made.

So, although proposals and probably attempts for fire insurance had been made before, by individuals or clubs, and by Anglo-Saxon guilds; yet we read that "a combination of persons"—which, in the words of to-day, we suppose means a company—opened "the first regular office for insuring against loss by fire" in 1681.

Of course, another speedily followed. That is our English way. But both of these have disappeared. One, however,—the appropriately named Hand-in-Hand, which was opened in 1696,—still survives, and added life-insurance business in 1836. The Sun was projected in 1708 and started in 1710, the Union followed four years later, the Westminster in 1717, the London in 1720, and the Royal Exchange in the same year.

LONDON FIREMAN IN 1696.

Therefore, the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries saw the practice of fire insurance well established in Britain as an organized system. Now, these offices not only undertook to repay the insurers for losses, but also to extinguish the fires themselves. This latter, indeed, was fully regarded as an integral part of their business. Thus, one of the prospectuses of an early fire-office states that "watermen and other labourers are to be employed, at the charge of the undertakers, to assist at the quenching of fires." And it is worthy of note that, while the earliest men employed were watermen, the London Fire-Brigade to-day will only accept able-bodied sailors as their recruits.

FIRE-INSURANCE BADGES.

The offices dressed their men in livery, and gave them badges; the men dwelt in different parts of the city, and were expected to be ready when any fires occurred. Even to-day the interest of the companies in the extinguishment of fires is recognized, and their early connection therewith maintained; for they pay the London County Council £30,000 annually toward the support of the brigade.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the fire-offices had notably increased in numbers. Thus, in 1810 there were sixteen, and some of their names will be recognized to-day. In addition to the Hand-in-Hand and the Sun, were the Phœnix (1782), the Royal Exchange, the North British (1809), the Imperial (1803), and the Atlas, dating from 1808; there was also the Caledonian, dating from 1805.

Each company fixed its badge to the building insured, a course which appears to have been suggested by the Sun, and adopted so that the firemen of the different companies might know to which office the burning house belonged.

The badge was stamped in sheet-lead, and was painted and gilded; but the badges for the firemen appear usually to have been of brass, and were fixed to the left arm. Each company not only kept its own engines and its staff of firemen, but also clad its men in distinctive uniforms. The dress for the Sun Office consisted of coat, waistcoat, and breeches of dark-blue cloth, adorned with shining brass buttons. The brass badge represented the usual conventional face of the sun, with the rays of light around, and the name placed above.

The helmet was of horse-hide, with cross-bars of metal. It was made of leather inside, but stuffed and quilted with wool. This quilting would, it was hoped, protect the head from falling stones or timbers, dangers which are still the greatest perils threatening firemen at their work.

By-and-by, Parliament made some effort towards organizing fire extinction. In 1774, a law was passed, providing that the parish overseers and churchwardens should maintain an engine to extinguish fires within their own boundaries. These engines were doubtless manned in many parishes, especially in rural districts, by voluntary workers, who sometimes were probably not even enrolled in an organized voluntary brigade; the police also in certain places undertook fire duty. But "what is every one's business is no one's business," and for various reasons numbers of these parish fire-engines fell into disuse.

In short, the organization for the extinguishment of fires was thoroughly unsatisfactory. The men belonging to the different companies were too often rivals, when they should have been co-workers; each naturally gave special attention to the houses bearing their badges. We obtain a remarkable picture of the inefficiency prevailing in a letter from an eye-witness, Sir Patrick Walker, in No. 9 of the Scots Magazine in 1814. It refers to Edinburgh, but doubtless is true of other places.

ROYAL EXCHANGE FIREMAN.

(From a portrait.)

Sir Patrick had taken an active part in endeavouring to arrest a conflagration, and he remarks on "a total absence of combined and connected aid, which must often render abortive all exertions." The chief defect, he declares, lies "in having company engines, which creates a degree of jealousy among the men who work them." When all success depended on their united efforts, then they were most discordant. There were often more engines than water to adequately supply them, consequently no engine had probably enough to be efficient. The remedy, he held, was to abolish all names or marks, and form the whole into one body on military principles.

Curiously enough, the brigade that was formed in London has come to be regulated rather on naval than on military principles; but the essence of Sir Patrick's suggestion was undoubtedly sound. He also complained greatly of the waste of water by hand-carrying, which, moreover, created great confusion.

These grave defects were, no doubt, also felt keenly by the London fire-offices, and in 1825 some of them combined to form one brigade. They were the Sun, the Phœnix, the Royal Exchange, the Union, and the Atlas; and seven years later, in the memorable year 1832, all the more important companies united.

In this action they were led by Mr. R. Bell Ford, director of the Sun Fire-Office. The organization then formed was called the London Fire-Engine Establishment, and had nineteen stations and eighty men. It was placed under the superintendence of Mr. James Braidwood, a name never to be forgotten in the story of fire-brigades and their work.

But to learn something of this great man and his daring deeds and noble career, we must change the scene to Edinburgh.

CHAPTER VI. THE STORY OF JAMES BRAIDWOOD.

"Something must be done!"

Many an Edinburgh citizen must have expressed this decision in the memorable year 1824. Several destructive fires had occurred, and at each catastrophe the need of efficient organization was terribly apparent. It seemed as though the whole city would be burned.

Then the police took action. The commissioners of the Edinburgh police appointed a committee, and a Fire-Engine Corps, as it was called, was established, on October 1st of the same year. The new organization was to be supported by contributions from various companies, from the city of Edinburgh, and from the police funds.

"But who was to superintend it?"

Now, a gentleman had become known to the commissioners, perhaps through being already a superintendent of fire-engines; and though only twenty-four years of age, he was appointed.

His name was James Braidwood. He was born in 1800 in Edinburgh, and was the son of a builder. Receiving his education at the High School, he afterwards followed his father's business. But in 1823, he was appointed superintendent of the fire-engines, perhaps owing to his knowledge of building and carpentry; and when the corps was established, he was offered the command.

He proceeded to form his brigade of picked men. He selected slaters, house-carpenters, plumbers, smiths, and masons. Slaters, he said afterwards, become good firemen; not only from their cleverness in climbing and working on roofs—though he admitted these to be great advantages—but because he found them generally more handy and ready than other classes of workmen.

They were allowed to follow their ordinary occupations daily; but they were regularly trained and exercised every week, the time chosen being early in the morning. Method was imparted to their work. Instead of being permitted to throw the water wastefully on walls or windows where it might not reach the fire at once, they were taught to seek it out, and to direct the hose immediately upon it at its source.

This beneficial substitution of unity, method, skill, and intelligent control for scattered efforts, random attempts, lack of organization, and discord in the face of the enemy, was soon manifest.

Five years after the corps had been established under Mr. Braidwood, the Edinburgh Mercury wrote: "The whole system of operations has been changed. The public, however, do not see the same bustle, or hear the same noise, as formerly; and hence they seem erroneously to conclude that there is nothing done. The fact is, the spectator sees the preparation for action made, but he sees no more. Where the strength of the men and the supply of water used to be wasted, by being thrown against windows, walls, and roofs, the firemen now seek out the spot where the danger lies, and, creeping on hands and feet into the chamber full of flame or smoke, often at the hazard of suffocation, discover the exact seat of danger, and, by bringing the water in contact with it, obtain immediate mastery over the powerful element with which they have to contend. In this daring and dangerous work, men have occasionally fainted from heat, or dropped down from want of respiration; in which case, the next person at hand is always ready to assist his companion, and to release him from his service of danger."

Not only exercising great powers of skilful management, Braidwood showed remarkable determination and presence of mind in the face of danger. Hearing on one occasion that some gunpowder was stored in an ironmonger's shop, which was all aflame, he plunged in, and, at imminent risk of his life, carried out first one cask from the cellar, and then, re-entering, brought out another, thus preventing a terrible explosion.

In 1830, Mr. Braidwood issued a pamphlet dealing with the construction of fire-engines, the training of firemen, and the method of proceeding in cases of fire. In this work he declared he had not been able to find any work on fire-engines in the English language—a state of things which testifies to the lack of public interest or lack of information in the matter in those days. The book is technical, but useful to the expert before the era of steam fire-engines.

But in a volume, issued a few years after his death, Mr. Braidwood takes a comprehensive glance at the condition of fire extinguishment in different places. The date is not given; but it was probably about 1840.

In substance he says: "On the Continent generally, the whole is managed by Government, and the firemen are placed under martial law, the inhabitants being compelled to work the engines. In London, the principal means ... is a voluntary association of the Insurance Companies without legal authority; the legal protection by parish engines being, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, a dead letter. In Liverpool, Manchester, and other towns, the extinction of fires by the pressure of water only, without the use of engines, is very much practised. In America, the firemen are generally volunteers enrolled by the local governments, and entitled to privileges."

From this bird's-eye view, it will be seen that organization for fire extinction and the use of efficient appliances for fighting the flames were still in a very unsatisfactory state; yet the increasing employment of lucifer-matches and of gas in the earlier years of the nineteenth century tended to increase conflagrations.

Moreover, it is curious that the public seemed but little aroused to this unsatisfactory condition of affairs. Perhaps they saw their way to nothing better; perhaps, if they took precautions, they regarded a fire as unlikely to occur in their own house, even if it might happen to their neighbour. Whatever the cause, they seem to have been but little stirred on the subject.

It was probably Mr. Braidwood's pamphlet of 1830 that led to his appointment as chief of the newly-formed London Fire-Engine Establishment. The publication showed him to be an authority on the subject, and one likely to succeed in the post. He came with the cordial good wishes of his Edinburgh friends. The firemen presented him with a gold watch, and the committee with a piece of plate.

He was ever careful of his men. He watched their movements, when they were likely to be placed in positions of peril; and he would not allow any man to risk unnecessary danger. Yet he was himself as daring as he was skilful, and never shrank from encountering personal risk.

This was the sort of man who came to lead the London Fire-Engine Establishment. He found it a small force, composed of groups of men accustomed formerly to act in rivalry, and having between thirty and forty engines, throwing about ninety gallons a minute to a height of between seventy and eighty feet, and also several smaller hand-hauled engines, comparatively useless at a large fire. In addition to the establishment of the associated companies, there were about three hundred parish engines and many maintained at places of business by private firms.

By his energy and skill, Mr. Braidwood kept the fires in check, and came to be regarded as a great authority on fire extinguishment and protection from fire. On these subjects, he was consulted in connection with the Royal Palaces and Government Offices, and held an appointment as a chief fire inspector of various palaces and public buildings. He became an Associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and read several papers before that body, and also before the Society of Arts, on the subject of the extinction and prevention of fires.

The force under his command was increased from eighty to a hundred and twenty men; but it still remained the Establishment of the Fire-Offices. Throughout the country, the extinguishment of fire continued largely in the hands of voluntary workers, assisted by various authorities, even the fire-brigades being sometimes supplemented by the police and the water companies, as well as the general public.

And then an event occurred, which not only thrilled London with horror, but probably led to one of the most remarkable developments in the efforts for fire extinction that England had known.

CHAPTER VII. THE THAMES ON FIRE. THE DEATH OF BRAIDWOOD.

About half-past four o'clock in the afternoon of June 22nd, 1861, an alarm of fire reached the Watling Street station.

The firemen turned out to the call; but little did they think, as they hurried along, that the fire to which they were summoned would burn for a whole month, and would become known as one of the most serious in the history of London.

The call came from Tooley Street, on the south side of London Bridge. Some jute in the upper part of a warehouse had been discovered smouldering, and bucketsful of water had been thrown upon it; but the smoke became so thick and overwhelming, that the men were compelled to desist, and the flames grew rapidly.

By this time the alarm had been sent to Watling Street. Quickly the fire-engines arrived on the spot, and the men found dense masses of smoke pouring from buildings at Cotton's Wharf. A number of tall warehouses, rising up to six stories high, and filled with inflammable goods, stood here and near by, among the goods being oil, tallow, tar, cotton, saltpetre, bales of silk, and chests of tea. In spite of all efforts, the fire burned steadily on, and dense volumes of smoke poured forth.

Mr. Braidwood had speedily arrived, and two large floating-engines, in addition to others, were got to work. He stationed his men wisely, and huge jets of water were speedily playing on the fire.

Great excitement soon rose in the neighbourhood. Surging crowds of eager people thronged the streets approaching the wharf, and a dense assemblage pressed together on London Bridge. Even the thoroughfares on the opposite side were blocked. But the spectators could see little just then, except thick clouds of smoke and great jets of water. On the river, vessels struggled to escape from the proximity of the burning building; while on land, the police forced back the people from the surrounding streets, so as to give greater freedom to the firemen.

JAMES BRAIDWOOD.

Then, about an hour after the alarm had been given, a loud explosion startled the people; a bright tongue of flame shot upward through the smoke, and seemed to strike downward also to the ground, while the whole building became a sheet of fire.

The neighbouring buildings became involved; rivers of fire burst out of windows, ran down walls, and actually flowed along the streets. It even poured on to the waters of the Thames itself. Melted tallow and oil flowed along as they burned, like liquid fire. No wonder the conflagration spread rapidly. Less than two hours after the call had been received—that is, at about six o'clock—the fire had extended to eight large warehouses.

The heat now became overpowering. Drifting clouds of smoke obscured the calm evening sky, and spread like a pall overhead. In spite of all efforts, the fierce conflagration gained continually on the men; it leaped over a space between the buildings, and attacked a block of warehouses on the opposite side. The roaring of the flames, the thick smoke, and the curious, disagreeable smells arising from the various goods which were burning, became almost unbearable.

The men suffered greatly from exhaustion; and Mr. Braidwood, seeing their distress, procured refreshments. He was dividing them among the men as he stood near the second building which had caught fire, when again a loud explosion rent the air, and the wall of the warehouse was seen to be falling.

"Run for your lives!" was the cry; and the men, seized for once with panic, rushed away. Mr. Braidwood and a gentleman with him followed; but unhappily they were not in time, and with a loud crash the huge wall fell upon them, and crushed them to the ground with tons of heavy masonry.

"Let us save them!" cried the men; and a score hurried to the spot. But again a third explosion occurred, a mass of burning material was hurled on the fatal heap, all around fell the fire, and rescue was seen to be hopeless.

THE TOOLEY STREET FIRE, 1861.

As if in triumph, the flames swept on and mounted higher. Wharf after wharf was involved, and warehouse after warehouse. The Depôt Wharf, Chamberlain's Wharf, and others caught fire. Night seemed turned into day by the blaze. Ships near the wharves, laden with the same inflammable materials of oil, and tar, and tallow, became ignited; and the blazing liquids poured out on the river, forming a lake of fire a quarter-mile long by a hundred yards wide.

People crowded everywhere to see the sight. They thronged house-tops and church-steeples. Boatmen ventured near to pick up such goods as they might be able to find, and were threatened with dire peril. Some fainted from the heat. A barge drifted near with three men aboard, who were so overcome that they could not manage their cumbersome craft; a skiff approached sufficiently near to rescue the men, after which the barge drifted nearer still, and was burnt.

Though greatly dispirited by the loss of their captain, the firemen fought doggedly on. But still their efforts seemed unavailing. Flakes of fire fell in all directions, and huge volumes of flame flashed upward to the sky. The whole of Bermondsey seemed in peril, and at one period the fire blazed for close upon a quarter-mile along the river-bank.

Through the night more engines clattered up from distant stations, and the firemen fought the flames at every step of their destructive career. Tons of water were poured upon each building as it became threatened, only, however, to yield in course of time.

The wind saved the old church of St. Olave's, and also London Bridge Station; but the fire raged along the wharves. Sometimes great warehouse walls fell into the river with a gigantic splash, revealing the inferno of white-hot fire raging behind them.

At length the fire reached Hay's Wharf, which was supposed to be fireproof, and for long it justified the name. But at last it also yielded; the upper part began to blaze, and, in spite of the quantities of water thrown upon the roof and walls, the fire gradually increased.

Now beyond the building lay a dock, in which were berthed two ships. The tide had been too low to allow of their removal. If they could not be towed out in time, the fire would probably seize them, and thus be wafted over the dock to the other side.

Would the tide rise in time to allow the ships to be hauled out? It was a critical moment, and the firemen must have worked their hardest to keep the building from flaming too quickly.

Gradually the tide flowed higher and higher. No matter what happens in the mighty city, twice in the day and night does the Thames silently ebb and flow; and now the quiet flowing of the tide helped to save the great city on its bank. Just in time two tugs were able to enter the dock. The towing-ropes were thrown aboard; but even as the vessels were passing out, the flames, as if determined not to lose their prey, darted from the building, and set the rigging of one ship aflame.

But the firemen were as quick as their enemy. An engine threw a torrent of water on the burning ship, and promptly quenched the flames. And so, amid the plaudits of the huge crowds on both sides of the river, the two ships were slowly towed to a place of safety, and the fierce fire was left face to face with the empty dock.

The quiet dock was successful. The wide space filling up with water from the flowing tide stopped the progress of the fire. This stoppage must have occurred about five o'clock on the following morning; but within the area already covered by the conflagration, fire continued to burn for a month.

Even after the first seven days, a fresh explosion and flash of flame showed the danger of the conflagration, now fortunately confined within limits. In fact, July 22nd had dawned before it was entirely extinguished, the total loss being estimated at about two millions sterling.

Nearly all the goods destroyed were of the most inflammable description. There were nine thousand casks of tallow and three hundred tuns of olive oil, beside thousands of bales of cotton, two thousand parcels of bacon, and other valuable merchandise. The tallow, no doubt, burned the fiercest and the most persistently. Melting with the intense heat, it poured out into cellars and streets, where much of it speedily caught fire. The floors of nine vaults, each measuring 100 by 20 feet, were covered two feet deep with melted tallow and palm oil, and all helped to feed the fire. No wonder it burned for days, if such material fed the flames, although the firemen continued to pour water on the ruins. Some of the tallow, found floating on the river, was collected, and sold at twopence per pound.

Mr. Braidwood's body was found on June 24th, so charred as to be scarcely recognizable. He was buried at Abney Park Cemetery, and was accorded the honour of a great public funeral. The London Rifle-Brigade attended, as well as large bodies of firemen and of the police, and an immense concourse of the general public. So large a multitude, it was said, had not attended any funeral since the obsequies of the Duke of Wellington.

A proposition was made to raise a public fund for the benefit of Mr. Braidwood's widow and six children, and a large sum was subscribed; but it was announced that the Insurance Companies had amply provided for his family.

The neighbourhood of Southwark, where the fatal fire occurred, has been the scene of many remarkable conflagrations. In the same year as the famous Tooley Street fire, Davis's Wharf at Horselydown was burnt, involving a loss of about £15,000; while at a large fire at Dockhead two or three years later, vast quantities of saltpetre, corn, jute, and flour were consumed. A brisk wind favoured the flames, and hundreds of tons of saltpetre flashed up into fire. Bright sparks and flame-coloured smoke floated over the conflagration, and were wafted by the wind, accompanied by deafening reports and great flashes of fire.

Numbers of other conflagrations have occurred in this neighbourhood. The streets were narrow, and the district was full of warehouses, containing all kinds of merchandise, which burnt like tinder when fairly ignited. Imagine coffee and cloves, sulphur and saltpetre, oil, turpentine, and tallow all afire! What a commingling of odours and of strange-coloured flame!

The bacon frizzles; the corn parches and chars; the flour mixes with the water, then dries and smoulders in the great heat, and smells like burning bread; the preserved tongues diffuse an offensive odour of burning flesh; while the commingling of cinnamon and salt, mustard and macaroni, jams and figs and liquorice, unite to make a hideous combination of coloured flames, sickening smells, and thick and lurid smoke. The huge warehouses built in this district since the closing years of the eighteenth century are filled with all kinds of goods from various parts of the world; but of all the disastrous fires which have ravaged the district, the great Tooley Street fire of 1861 has been the worst.

Moreover, it will always be memorable for the death of Braidwood. Even now you may hear men in the London Fire-Brigade speak of Braidwood or Braidwood's time, and his memory has become a noble tradition in the service. So great an authority had he become on the subject of fire extinction, and so highly was he held in public esteem, that his terrible death in the performance of his duty was regarded as a national calamity.

But the conflagration also revealed with startling clearness the inadequacy of the Companies' Fire Establishment. More appliances and more men were wanted. The companies were asked, "Will you increase your organization?" And their answer, put briefly, was, "No."