“Water, and nothing _but_ water!” exclaimed Mr. John Diggs, the great
sugar-baker (everybody knows old John Diggs), “Water, I say, is the
natural enemy of fire; and any man who dares to say otherwise is no
better that a fool or a charlatan. I should like to knock such a fellow
down. I know more about fire than all the learned talking chaps in
England, and it’s of no use to tell me when a house is in a blaze, that
any thing but water _can_ put it out. Not a bit of it. Don’t attempt to
say so; I won’t hear it!”
Mr. Diggs gave vent to his feelings in the above oracular form at his
Club, on Thursday evening last, on which occasion he happened to be the
Chairman. It was in consequence of one of the junior members reading a
passage from a scientific Journal, to the effect that water was almost
as much a friend to fire, as an enemy—and that, at any rate, they were
near of kin—quoting Mr. Phillips, the Inventor of the Fire Annihilator,
as a practical authority on the subject. This was what had so enraged
Mr. Diggs, sugar-baker, and chairman of the Albert Rock and Toffee Club.
Mr. John Diggs is a man who always carries his will before him, like a
crown on a cushion, while his reason follows like a page, holding up the
skirts of his great coat. Honest-hearted, and not without generosity, he
is much esteemed in spite of his many perversities. He possesses a
shrewd observation, and a good understanding, when once you can get at
it; but his energies and animal spirits commonly carry him out of all
bounds, so that to bring him back to rational judgment is a work of no
small difficulty. He is _open_ to conviction, as he always says, but he
is a tip-top specimen of the class who commonly use that expression; his
open door is guarded by all the bludgeons of obstinacy, behind which
sits a pig-headed will, with its eyes half shut.
This is the man, and in the condition of mind which may be conjectured
from his speech in the chair, just quoted, who drove up in his gig last
Friday, as the clock struck four, to the gates of the London Gas Works,
Vauxhall, in order to hear, with his own ears, Mr. Phillips dare to say
he could extinguish the most violent flames without the use of water;
and to see, with his own eyes, the total failure of the attempt, and the
exposure of the humbug.
To make sure of entire sympathy in all his perversities, Mr. Diggs had
brought his wife with him; and to insure a ready assistance in the
detection of any tricks, his foreman, Mr. White, had been sent on by the
steamer. A real reason lay at the bottom of all this; for the work-place
and warehouse of Mr. Diggs were worth 60,000_l._; part of which sum, no
insurance could cover; and his stock in trade as well as his works, he
but too well knew, were of a most combustible nature. No laughing
matter—therefore not a thing to be trifled with.
Mr. Diggs met his foreman in the yard, waiting for his arrival; and the
party having displayed their tickets, were ushered across and around,
till they came to a large brick building, with a long row of arched
window holes along the top, apparently for the ready escape of volumes
of smoke. The window holes all looked very black about the edges. So did
the door-posts. The walls were very dingy and besmutched. Mrs. Diggs had
put on her best spring bonnet with orange ribbons, and her pink and
fawn-coloured silk shawl. She had a sudden misgiving, but it couldn’t be
helped now.
They were ushered through a large, smutty door, into a brick building,
paved with bricks, and having arched recesses, here and there, at the
lower part. Commodious retreats, in case the flames put forth their
tongues beyond their usual range, and advanced towards the centre of the
building,—as Mr. Diggs devoutly hoped they might. At one end, the wooden
frame-work of a house, with ground-floor, and first and second floor,
presented its front. It was black and charred from recent fire, with
sundry repairs of new planks, which “brought out” the black of the rest,
both without and within, to the greatest advantage. Level with the
lowest window was a sort of lecturer’s stage of rough planks, at the
back of which lay the model of a ship’s hull, some six or seven feet in
length; and to the right of this, the model of a house, with lower and
upper floor, of about two feet and a half in height.
Fronting this stage, model ship, model house, and actual house, was a
semicircle of chairs and benches—not too near—with ample room left at
the sides for the sudden flight of visitors who had seated themselves in
an incredulous and unimaginative state of mind, nearer than subsequent
events seemed to warrant. Then, there were the arched recesses; then, a
low stage with seats; then, a broad flight of wooden stairs at the
opposite end, by which visitors could ascend to a high platform, leading
also to side galleries, on the same level. The whole place was most
eloquent to the olfactory nerves of coal-tar, pitch, resin, turpentine,
&c. A light sprinkling of sawdust completed the furnishing of this hall,
in which one of the most extraordinary of all our modern discoveries
(provided it prove thoroughly efficient) was about to be subjected to
trial.
Mr. Diggs having planted his foreman at one horn of the crescent of
chairs, and dragging his wife (whose thoughts of her handsome bonnet and
shawl were written in shady lines all over her face) to a dirty-seated
bench, on the other, he darted straight across to the scene of action,
and without a moment’s hesitation or ceremony, ascended the lecturer’s
stage, and diving with nose and hands into the model of the ship’s hull,
began to explore its contents.
The hold, and, indeed, all the interior of the hull, he found to be full
of patent fire-wood, for the rapid kindling of fire, each separate piece
being sufficient to light an ordinary fire; but here, there was nothing
else. He passed on to the model house; opened the door, and looked in.
Here, also, he found a quantity of patent fire-wood, lying on both
floors. A trap-door was left open in the roof to allow of the escape of
the smoke. Mr. Diggs now descended from the little stage, and advanced
to the door of the house which was to be set on fire. He entered the
door-way, and immediately found himself in a dark chamber filled with
charred planks, pitched planks, cross-pieces of new wood, blackened
beams, and a variety of hangings and festoons made of shavings saturated
with coal-tar, resin, and turpentine. A staircase, or, rather, a broad
charred ladder, led up to the first floor. Mr. Diggs forthwith ascended,
and stepped upon a flooring perfectly black; in fact, the whole room
seemed made of charcoal, with here and there a new plank laid across, or
slanting upwards, smeared with coal-tar, and adorned like the
ground-floor, with shavings steeped in resin, pitch, turpentine, and
other combustible matter. “Well,” thought Mr. Diggs, “at all events,
there’ll be flames enough.” A second charred ladder formed a staircase
leading to the top floor; but this was so dilapidated and rotten from
recent burning, that our sceptical sugar-baker could venture to do no
more than clamber up, and rest his chin on the blackened boards of the
floor above, in which position he clung by the smutty tips of his
fingers, and stared around, above him, and on all sides. He then slowly
descended, and as he made his way out of the front door, he hugged
himself with the firm belief that if the house were fairly set on fire
(as he determined it _should_ be), and the flames were allowed to get
into full play, nothing could stop them till they had burned the house
to the ground, and communicated with the brick building—when the regular
fire-engines, with their torrents of water, would, of course, be sent
for, with all imaginable speed.
Meantime, a considerable number of people of all ranks had assembled,
many of them of the aristocratic class, to judge by the row of liveries,
coachmen, and footmen, who lined one of the side galleries. Mrs. Diggs
comforted herself with the sight of many elegantly-dressed ladies, who
seated themselves on the chairs and benches in front of the little
stage, or platform. Perhaps the smoke and smuts might not be so very
bad, after all, or might be driven back by the wind. Of this it was
rational to entertain some hopes, as the whole building was in a
thorough draught, evinced by many a sneeze and cough,—a condition some
of the visitors thought very unnecessary to be endured before the
conflagration commenced.
Mr. Phillips now ascended the platform, and commenced his brief lecture.
He said he had no sort of intention to undervalue the real service of
water in cases of fire, but only to show that water was by no means the
most efficient agent. The more active part of fire was flame; all fire
commenced with flame, and upon this, when at a great height, water in
any portable quantities, was comparatively powerless. Moreover, there
were many materials, forming the staple commodity of various trades,
which, being ignited, not only defied the power of water, but their
state of combustion was actually increased by the application of water.
This was the case with oil or turpentine, when on fire, with tar, gas,
ardent spirits, &c. Every distiller must know this—and so must every
sugar-baker.
Mr. Diggs suddenly shifted his _pose_ from the right to the left leg;
but said nothing. This was not the point at issue.
In illustration of his last remark, Mr. Phillips called upon his
audience to imagine the hull of the model ship to be a ship at sea with
a large crew, many passengers, and a valuable cargo on board,—part of
the cargo consisting of highly combustible materials. The ship takes
fire! The alarm is given, all hands called on deck, the fire-engine got
out, the pumps set to work! But before this has been done, it happens
that a cask of spirits of turpentine has taken fire! (So saying, Mr.
Phillips sets light to a quantity of spirits of turpentine in an iron
vessel in the ship). The flames rise rapidly!—terrifically—they ascend
the fore-rigging, which, being all tarred, is quickly in a blaze! Now
all is dismay and confusion, more especially among the passengers. Some
of these, however, retain sufficient presence of mind to be able to
assist the sailors in pumping. They drench the ship with water,—they
pour a continual stream from the engine upon the flames of the
turpentine! (At these words Mr. Phillips dips a jug in a bucket of
water, and pours it upon the flames.) But it only increases them—(it
does so)—more water is dashed upon the flames by the men (Mr. Phillips
suits the action to the word) and by the boldest of the passengers, but
with no better result. Now, the fire communicates with a second barrel
of spirits of turpentine; the flames rise on all sides, and ascend with
a continuous roar to the rigging of the mainmast, which is rapidly in a
blaze. (The model ship is literally all in a blaze.) In despair and
madness, buckets of water are flung at random—nobody knows what he is
doing; all rush wildly about, preparing to leap overboard at the very
moment they scream loudest for the boats!—the boats!—when an individual
suddenly recollects, as by a flash of thought, that there is a machine
on board called a Fire Annihilator. (Here Mr. Phillips seizes upon a
small brass machine, out of which he causes a white vapour to issue.) In
a second or two the flames are half extinguished;—he carries the machine
to the other flaming mast, and to the casks in the forehold,—the flames
are gone!
And so they are! Of the volume of flames in the model ship, which by
this time had risen to the height of eight or nine feet, not a flash
remains,—they were annihilated in four or five seconds. The machine
which wrought this wonder was like a brass shaving-pot, or bachelor’s
coffee-pot, and certainly not larger.
But how was Mr. Diggs affected by this? Did the worthy sugar-baker look
peculiarly wise, or did he stand rather aghast at his own wisdom?
Neither the one, nor the other. Had Mr. Phillips been a fine actor, the
foregoing scene, with its fiery illustration, and the frantic yet
fruitless use of water, would have had a tremendous effect; but his
manner was not sufficiently excited, and, worse than this, he very much
damaged the effect, and the conviction it would have carried with it, by
turning his back towards the audience when he poured the water upon the
flames, so that “standing in his own light,” it was impossible for many
people to see whether the water was really poured into the model ship,
or over the other side, unless they could have seen through his body.
This was not lost upon John Diggs, who loudly murmured his
dissatisfaction, accordingly, in opposition to the general applause of
those who _did_ see, which followed the rapid extinction of the flames.
How _this_ was accomplished Mr. Diggs did not know; he simply considered
that water had not had fair play. He suspected some trick.
“The existence of water,” pursued Mr. Phillips, “is continuous, flowing,
not quickly to be destroyed; the life of fire is momentary. (He explodes
a large lucifer-match.) Now you see it at its height! (He dashes it into
water). Now it is nothing! Its life is from instant to instant. Why has
it become nothing? Because water is its natural antagonist? No—but
because fire cannot exist without a certain quantity of _air_; and when
it is entirely immersed in water, this requisite quantity of air is
suddenly withdrawn, and the fire as instantly dies. The very same result
would follow if I were to dash a lighted match into oil.”
“Let us see!” exclaimed Mr. Diggs; but he was called to order by a
number of voices.
Mr. Phillips had been led many years ago, as he now informed us, to
consider the nature of fire and water. It so chanced that he had
witnessed most of the great conflagrations which have happened in London
during the last twenty or thirty years. The destruction to the Royal
Exchange, the Houses of Parliament—the fire at the Tower, theatres,
great warehouses—he was present at them all; and he could not but
observe amidst the prodigious efforts made to save them, that water was
comparatively powerless upon violent flames; and therefore inadequate to
the task it was called upon to perform. He was also witness of a series
of terrible volcanic eruptions. He was in a seventy-four gun-ship in the
Mediterranean at the time. For thirty or forty days there was an
eruption, and sometimes two or three, almost daily. The most terrific of
these—and by which they were nearly lost, having been driven towards it,
and only saved by a sudden change of wind—was of such force, that the
shock was felt throughout the south of Europe,—from the Rock of
Gibraltar, to Stromboli. A volcanic island was thrown up in the middle
of the sea, from a depth of four or five hundred feet. This island was
of molten lava, and rose in the form of a crescent with an open crater,
into which the sea continually rushed like a cataract. But the fire
within was not extinguished. At each successive eruption, the water was
ejected with a force that sent it up two miles, and sometimes three
miles high—again to descend in thousands of tons upon the crater, but
without extinguishing the fire. The sea was boiling for a quarter of a
mile on one side of the island: the fire was completely beyond its
power. Instead of extinguishing fire, the water was made to boil. But he
observed this further phenomenon. A dense cloud of vapour was sometimes
generated; and whenever the wind bore this vapour into the flames, they
were immediately extinguished.
A consideration of these phenomena led Mr. Phillips to the following
conclusions. Fire and water are not natural enemies, but very near
relations. They are each composed of the same elements; and in the same
proportions; the component parts of water can be turned into fire; and
when fire ceases to be fire, it becomes water. (This latter proposition
caused Mr. Diggs to prick up his ears, but he said nothing.) The two
elements had by no means the direct and immediate power over each other
that was generally supposed. Water was a compact body, and acting in
this body, it could not act simultaneously on the particles of gases
which produce flame; but a gaseous vapour being of an equally subtle
nature with the gases it has to attack, can instantly intermix with
them. Find, therefore, a gaseous vapour, which shall intercept the
contact of the gases of flame, and thus prevent their chemical union,
their inflammatory forces are thereby destroyed, and the flame is at
once extinguished.
The means of immediately generating this gaseous vapour had, after
numerous experiments during many years, been discovered by Mr. Phillips.
With this composition, his machine, called the Fire Annihilator, was
charged.
He pointed to the small model house. It was made of iron, and filled
with combustible materials. He had had the honour of exhibiting it
before many crowned heads.
“Like the Wizard of the North!” muttered Mr. Diggs, looking
contemptuously at the model.
The fuel within it, is now ignited. The flames rapidly spread, and
ascend to the upper floor. A thick smoke issues from the trap-door on
the roof.
“Here,” said Mr. Phillips, “is a house on fire! Some of the inmates are
trying to escape by the trap-door on the roof. They make their way out.
The fire-escapes of the Royal Society are in attendance with their usual
promptitude; their courageous men are ascending the ladders to assist
the inmates in their descent. But where are the inmates? Two of them
have fallen down somewhere, another has actually got back into the
attic. The reason is, that life cannot exist in that smoke which the
fire generates.”
A lighted match being held in it, instantly went out. This was repeated
quickly, once or twice. It always went out. The interior of the house
was full of flames. One of the little Fire Annihilators was now applied
to the door of the model. The flames sunk to nothing almost immediately.
A thick vapour was left in their place. But in this vapour life _can_
exist. Mr. Phillips again lights a match, and applies it to the vapour
issuing through the trap-door. The match continues to burn. Mr. Phillips
then thrusts his arm through the door, and holds the match in the
interior of the house, where it still continues to burn amidst the
vapour. In this vapour human life can equally exist.
“Don’t believe it!” muttered Mr. Diggs, amidst the otherwise unanimous
applause, in which was lost his additional request,—“Set fire to the
real house, and have done with it!”
Mr. Phillips here described his machine. Its various complications had
been reduced to a simple form and action. As he has printed this for
general circulation, it will be sufficient to state that the ordinary
size is less than that of a small upright iron coal-skuttle, and its
weight not greater than can be easily carried by man or woman to any
part of the house. It is charged with a compound of charcoal, nitre, and
gypsum, moulded into the form of a large brick. The igniter is a glass
tube inserted in the top of the brick, inclosing two phials—one filled
with a mixture of chlorate of potassa and sugar, the other containing a
few drops of sulphuric acid. A slight blow upon a knob drives down a
pin, which breaks the phials, and the different mixtures coming in
contact, ignite the whole; and the gas of this, acting upon a water
chamber contained in the machine, produces a steam, and the whole
escapes forcibly in a dense and expanding cloud.
Preparations were now made for setting fire to the three-roomed house. A
“sensation” passed over the room, and several ladies began to rise from
their chairs, and retire from the semicircle in front of the
lecture-stage. Mr. Phillips assured them there was no danger, as he had
a perfect command over the flames; at the same time, he requested the
company to observe that he had purposely arranged that every
disadvantage should be against him. The house was full of combustible
materials—the whole building was in a thorough draught (it was indeed)
and they would observe that the commencement of the full force of the
fire would be almost immediate, and without any of the gradual advances
which were usual in almost all conflagrations. Lastly, he called upon
them to take note that the fury of the flames would be such that no life
could exist near them for a single instant.
Without further words a lighted match is applied to one of the tarred
and turpentined shavings that hang in the ground-floor of the house.
It sparkles—blazes—and in one moment the lower room is full of flames!
In the next, they have risen to the floor above—they crackle, roar, and
beat about, springing up to the roof, and darting out tongues and forks
to the right and left of the building, while a dense hot cloud of smoke,
full of red fragments of shavings and other embers comes floating and
dancing over the heads of the assembled company. Everybody has arisen
from his seat,—ladies—gentlemen,—and now all the visitors, are crowding
towards the other end of the building! The whole place is filled with
the roar of flames, the noise of voices, hurrying feet, and rustling
garments—and clouds of hot smoke!
But suddenly a man enters the building from a side-door, bearing a
portable Fire Annihilator of the size we have mentioned; he is followed
by a second. The machines are vomiting forth a dense white vapour. They
enter just within the door-way of the blazing house. A change instantly
takes place in the colour and action of the flames, as though they grew
pale in presence of their master. They sink. There is nothing but
darkness—and the dense white vapour coiling about in triumph.
“Life can now exist!” cries Mr. Phillips, rushing into the house, and
ascending the blackened stairs. Mr. Diggs (hoping he might be
suffocated) instantly follows. He gains the top of the ladder, and
plants one foot on the floor. He cannot see for the thick vapour. The
hand of Mr. Phillips assists him, and they both go to the window and
look out upon the company. Mr. Diggs coughs a little, but, to his
disappointment, is not suffocated. In another second or two, he can take
his breath freely. Very odd.
Mr. Diggs is more than staggered by such a proof. He begins to suspect
there may be something in it. As Mr. Phillips assists the worthy
sugar-baker over a piece of very burnt and precarious-looking flooring,
out at a side hole in the house, as the stairs are no longer safe, Mr.
Diggs thanks him very civilly for his attention, and—he almost adds—for
the satisfactory result of this last experiment; but he checked himself.
Time would show.
Meanwhile, all was pleasant confusion, and applause, and wonder, and
satisfaction, and congratulation, and the re-arrangement of habiliments,
and the polishing of smutty faces, and laughing and good humour among
the company. With some difficulty, Mr. Diggs discovered his wife, and
with almost equal difficulty recognised her after he had found her. She
had been honoured more than almost any one else, with the falling embers
and black smut of the conflagration. Her pink and fawn-coloured silk
shawl was spotted all over, and looked like a leopard-skin; the orange
ribbons on her bonnet were speckled, and otherwise toadied, while her
face, after a diligent use of her handkerchief (having no glass, or
friend to ask), had a complete shady tint all over it, giving her the
appearance of one of those complexions of lead colour, presented by
unfortunate invalids who have had occasion to undergo a course of
nitrate of silver. Many other persons were in a spotty and smutted
predicament, but none so bad as poor Mrs. Diggs, except, indeed her
husband; but he was insensible to such matters.
Issuing forth into the spacious yard of the gas works, a final
demonstration was about to be given to the visitors on their way out. A
circular pool, of eighteen feet in circumference, was filled with tar
and naphtha. This thick liquid mixture was ignited, and in a few seconds
the whole surface sent up a prodigious blaze of great brilliancy. A boy
of about eleven years of age (apparently a stranger to the machine, to
judge from his awkwardness) was desired to strike down the knob which
put the portable Fire Annihilator in action. He did so; and immediately
the thick white vapour began to gush forth. The boy carried the machine,
with very little effort, to within four or five feet of the flames.
Instantly the flames changed colour, as though with a sort of ghastly
purple horror of their destroyer—and, in a few seconds, down they sank,
and became nothing. There lay the black mixture, looking as if it had
never been disturbed. But the machine, meantime, went on vomiting forth
its vapour, with surplus power, like the escape-pipe of a steam-engine,
and the boy being in a state of confusion, was bringing the machine back
among the company assembled round, who all begun to retreat, when
somebody connected with the Works told him to let it off against the
dead wall. While this was taking place, the same individual remarked
aloud, that the vapour could not only be breathed after it had ascended
and extinguished a fire, but would not burn even as it gushed forth
fresh and furious from the machine. As he said this, he passed his hand
through it once or twice. Mr. Diggs suddenly thought he had a last
chance,—and, rushing forward, passed his hand (hoping he might be
dreadfully scorched) through the fierce vapour as it rushed out.
Actually, he was not at all scorched. It was only rather hot. He passed
his hand backwards and forwards twice more—a sort of greasy and rather
dirty warm moisture covered his hand—this was all. John Diggs was fairly
conquered—admitted it to himself—and, seeking out Mr. Phillips, went
honestly up to him, and shook him heartily by the hand—saying, with a
laugh, that if all was fairly done, and no necromancy, he had witnessed
a great fact, and he congratulated him.
Still—in a friendly way—he could not help asking Mr. Phillips for a word
of explanation as to his assertion that fire and water were of the same
family—in fact, convertible, each into the other. Mr. Phillips
accordingly favoured Mr. Diggs with the following remarks:—“Fire,” said
he, “is mainly composed of eight parts of oxygen, and one part of
hydrogen; thus making a whole of nine parts. When fire ceases to be
fire, it becomes water, retaining the same elements and proportions,
viz., eight of oxygen and one of hydrogen, and will weigh (if the
measure has been in pounds) nine pounds or parts. If you decompose these
nine pounds of water by voltaic battery, the gases generated will render
eight pounds of oxygen and one of hydrogen. Moreover, this law of nature
cannot be deranged or disturbed by human agency. If, to make fire, you
take eight parts of oxygen, and _two_ of hydrogen, the false proportion
will not prevent the product of fire; for the principle of fire, as if
by instinct, will elect its own proper proportions, become fire, and
throw over the excess, whether the error be an excess of oxygen or
hydrogen.”
“Thank you, Sir—thank you!” said Mr. John Diggs;—but he determined to
take a glass of punch with a friend of his, an experimental chemist,
that same evening.
Now, taking it for granted that there is no necromancy in all this, it
may be asked, how will the discovery affect, not only the Fire Brigade
of London, but the use of fire-engines (with hose and water) all over
the country, and the civilised world. Will they not be superseded? We
answer without hesitation, we think they will by no means be superseded.
One great value of this magnificent discovery of Mr. Phillips, consists
in its immediate command over the active part of fire, viz., flame:
whereby a fire in a large building full of combustible materials, a
private dwelling, a theatre, or a ship at sea, may be extinguished
before it has time to make any very destructive advances. But in all
cases where a fire has gained any ascendancy, and extended over a
considerable space, the use of water _after_ the flames have been
extinguished, continues as important as ever. The _red heat_ which
remains on the smouldering and heated materials, may re-ignite; and it
is to prevent this, that water is still an imperative requisition.
Moreover, water is necessary to drench adjoining chambers, partywalls,
or adjoining houses and premises, to prevent their liability to taking
fire from the conflagration that has already commenced. We earnestly
trust, therefore, that the greatest unanimity will exist in all branches
of this great Fire and Water Question, and that they will cordially
receive the new Vapour into amicable partnership and co-operation. Fully
recognising the immense importance to the community at large, of a body
of brave, well-trained, and skilful men, like those of the Fire Brigade,
and those who compose the staff of the Fire-Escapes of the Royal Society
(and two more efficient and admirable staffs do not exist in this
country, or any other country); we think, after Mr. Phillips’s invention
has passed through every test that can reasonably be required, that all
Fire-engines, and every Fire-escape, would do well to have one or more
of these Fire Annihilators with them as a regular part of their
apparatus.
Of the Fire-escapes of the Royal Society, the promptitude of their
action (they are almost always first at a fire), and the many lives
saved by them every year—nay, sometimes, in the course of a week—we had
contemplated a substantive account, but have been withheld by the
impossibility of doing justice to the various patents without accurate
drawings and diagrams. However, as these are already before the public,
we may content ourselves by saying, that, whether the Royal Society make
use of the Fire-escape invented by Winter and Sons, by Wivell, or by
Davies, the humane exertions of the Society have attained a success
which commands the admiration, and ensures the gratitude, of society at
large.
Respecting the annihilating properties of water, much may be said, and
will be said; but all in vain, until the water companies are brought to
their senses, and the utter abolition of domestic cisterns and
water-butts is effected. Without the continuous supply system—till all
the water-pipes in all the houses and all the streets are kept always
fully charged at high pressure, conflagrations never will, and never
can, be promptly put out by the agency of what the penny-a-liners have
lately taken to call the “antagonistic element.” Fire-engines, if not
wholly laid aside, must be only kept for exceptional cases, and the Fire
Brigade—well conducted, efficient, courageous as it is—may, some of
these days, be turned into a corps of reserve. With the mains ever
charged, with water at high service, no engines will be required. At the
first alarm of fire, the policeman pulls up the fire plug—which should
be opposite every sixth or eighth house—fixes the hose, and out spouts a
cataract in two minutes. Assistance arrives; trails of hoses are made to
lead from the rows of plugs on either side, or in other streets, and in
five minutes a deluge—and no more fire.
For the extinguishing of fire, _time_ is a most important consideration.
A few gallons of water would be effective if used at once, where
thousands of gallons would effect little after ten or fifteen minutes
had elapsed. The average time the Brigade engines take in arriving at a
fire after the first alarm is ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, rapid
as are their movements. The Parish engines are far more numerous, but
always last—and seldom of any use when they _do_ come. Conceive a parish
beadle at a fire!
In some towns in the north—among others Preston, Oldham, Ashton, Bolton,
Bury, and Manchester—the continuous water supply system has been in use
for some time with manifest benefit to the inhabitants. The fire plug
and jet, without engines, have, in these places, already done great
execution. Under recent improvements, also, the same plans have been
adopted in Hamburgh; Philadelphia and other American towns have, in
their wisdom, “done likewise.” On one occasion, at Liverpool, a fire was
extinguished by a hose which was promptly applied; a fire-engine arrived
presently after, when the engine-man, finding the fire had been
extinguished, knocked the hoseman down, as an impertinent fellow.
In factories, and other large buildings, if an arrangement of the above
kind were adopted, on the first alarm of fire a man would only have to
unwind a hose, and turn a cock. This, with one of the Fire Annihilators
at hand, would probably render the building quite secure.
These improvements and precautions carry with them a variety of
interesting consequences,—such as the check to incendiarism, the effect
on insurances, the benefit to health by the plug and hose being used
daily in washing the streets, and thus destroying foul exhalations after
a storm, &c.
While bringing this paper to a conclusion, we learn that Mr. John Diggs
has determined to have a _self-acting_ Fire Annihilator fixed in a
central position of his warehouse; so that if a fire should burst out in
the night, the flames would melt one or other of a series of leaden
wires, any one of which being thus divided, would liberate a heavy
weight, which would instantly run down an iron wire leading to the knob
and pin of his special Annihilator—ignite the contents of the machine,
and destroy the flames in his sugar-bakery, while he slept soundly in
his bed.