FIRES AND FIRE INSURANCE. (continued 2)

“The main ladder reaches from thirty to thirty-five feet, and can instantly be applied to most second-floor windows, by means of the carriage lever. The upper ladder folds over the main ladder, and is raised easily in the position represented, by a rope attached to its lever-irons on either side of the main ladder; or, as recently adopted in one or two of the escapes, by an arrangement of pulleys in lieu of the lever-irons. The short ladder, for first floors, fits in under the carriage, and is often of the greatest service. Under the whole length of the main ladder is a canvas trough or bagging, made of stout sailcloth, protected by an outer trough of copper-wire net, leaving sufficient room between for the yielding of the canvas in a person’s descent. The addition of the copper-wire is a great improvement, as, although not affording an entire protection against the canvas burning, it in most cases avails, and prevents the possibility of any one falling through. The soaking of the canvas in alum and other solutions is attended to; but this, while preventing its flaming, cannot avoid the risk of accident from the fire charring the canvas.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Year. Number of Stations. Fires attended. Lives saved.

1845 8 increased to 11 116 13

1846 11 " 15 96 7

1847 15 " 21 139 11

1848 21 " 25 197 17

1849 25 " 26 223 31

1850 26 " 28 198 10

1851 28 " 30 226 36

1852 30 " 34 253 25

1853 34 " 40 265 46

1854 40 " 40 328 28

Two since added.

Much may be done by the inmates to help themselves when a house is on fire, in case neither the engine nor the escape should arrive in time to assist them. Mr. Braidwood, in his little work on the method of proceeding at fires, advises his readers to rehearse to themselves his recommendations, otherwise when the danger comes, they are thrown, according to his experience, into “a state of temporary derangement, and seem to be actuated only by a desire of muscular movement,” throwing chairs and tables from the tops of houses that are scarcely on fire, and, to wind up the absurdity, he says, “on one occasion I saw crockery-ware thrown from a window on the third floor.”

The means to be adopted to prevent the flames spreading, resolve themselves into taking care not to open doors or windows, which create a draught. The same rule should be observed by those outside; no door or glass should be smashed in before the means are at hand to put out the fire.

Directions for aiding persons to escape from premises on fire.

1. Be careful to acquaint yourself with the best means of exit from the house both at the top and bottom.

2. On the first alarm, reflect before you act. If in bed at the time, wrap yourself in a blanket, or bedside carpet; open no more doors or windows than are absolutely necessary, and shut every door after you.

3. There is always from eight to twelve inches of pure air close to the ground: if you cannot therefore walk upright through the smoke, drop on your hands and knees, and thus progress. A wetted silk handkerchief, a piece of flannel, or a worsted stocking drawn over the face, permits breathing, and, to a great extent, excludes the smoke.

4. If you can neither make your way upwards nor downwards, get into a front room: if there is a family, see that they are all collected here, and keep the door closed as much as possible, for remember that smoke always follows a draught, and fire always rushes after smoke.

5. On no account throw yourself, or allow others to throw themselves, from the window. If no assistance is at hand, and you are in extremity, tie the sheets together, and, having fastened one end to some heavy piece of furniture, let down the women and children one by one, by tying the end of the line of sheets round the waist and lowering them through the window that is over the door, rather than through one that is over the area. You can easily let yourself down when the helpless are saved.

6. If a woman’s clothes should catch fire, let her instantly roll herself over and over on the ground; if a man be present, let him throw her down and do the like, and then wrap her in a rug, coat, or the first woollen thing that is at hand.

7. Bystanders, the instant they see a fire, should run for the fire-escape, or to the police station if that is nearer, where a “jumping-sheet” is always to be found.

Dancers, and those that are accustomed to wear light muslins and other inflammable articles of clothing, when they are likely to come in contact with the gas, would do well to remember, that by steeping them in a solution of alum they would not be liable to catch fire. If the rule were enforced at theatres, we might avoid any possible recurrence of such a catastrophe as happened at Drury Lane in 1844, when poor Clara Webster was so burnt before the eyes of the audience, that she died in a few days.

During the twenty-one years that the Brigade has been in existence the firemen have been called out needlessly no less than 1,695 times, often indeed mischievously; for there are some idle people who think it amusing to send the men and engines miles away to imaginary fires. In most cases, however, these false alarms have originated in the over-anxiety of persons, who have hastened to the station for assistance, deceived by lights which they fancied to be of a suspicious character. Nature herself now and then gives a false alarm, and puts the Brigade to infinite trouble by her vagaries. Not only the men at one station, but nearly half of the entire force, were employed in November, 1835, from 11 P.M. to 6 A.M. on the succeeding morning, in running after the aurora borealis. Some of the dozen engines out on that occasion reached as far as Kilburn and Hampstead in search of those evanescent lights, which exactly simulated extensive fires. In the succeeding year the red rays of the rising sun took in some credulous members of the Brigade, and led them with their engines full swing along the Commercial and Mile-End Roads. Whilst on this false scent they came upon a real fire, which, although inferior to great Sol himself in grandeur, was far more remunerative, as the God of Morning knows nothing about rewards to first, second, and third engines.

The most remarkable and universal false alarm caused by the play of the northern lights was in the autumn of this same year, when the whole north-eastern horizon seemed possessed by an angry conflagration, from which huge clouds of smoke appeared to roll away. On this occasion the public, as well as the firemen, were deceived: crowds poured forth from the West-end on foot and in carriages to see what they imagined to be a grand effect of the “devouring element;” and thirteen engines turned out with the full impression that a whole suburb of the metropolis was in flames.

The alarms from chimneys on fire have called the engines out no less than 1,982 times during the years the Brigade has been established, or on an average twice a week. Let us hope that, as we are setting about clearing the atmosphere by Act of Parliament, accidents of this kind will gradually cease. We may now watch with satisfaction many a tall shaft, as we steam down the river, that seems to stand idle in the air; the great rolling clouds of smoke that used to obscure the sky on the southern bank of the Thames are no longer seen, and the air is growing appreciably purer. It is evident that our manufacturers, where they have not become alive to the saving it would effect, have been coerced by the vigorous manner in which the Home Secretary has put the law in force against these black offenders; and we may hope that Dr. Arnott’s smoke-consuming grate, or some modification of it, will ere long find its way into every house to complete the work.