The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-09 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 9.

Berwsan fire and thieves • Londoner has at
present, it must be confessed, but disturbed and
uneasy slumbers. As he walks home of an evening
he trembles at the shadow of the gas lamps, and
as he faces round to meet the foe • lurid glare in
the sky tells him that somewhere or other in the
huge metropolis there are human beings struggling
in the wild terror and agony of a sudden confla-
gration. Breakfast next morning brings him the
daily papers, in which he reads of half-a-dozen
garotte robberies overnight, and of • like number
of fires in which homes and workshops have
perished or been desolated. The former evil Par-
liament is called on to deal with, and after next
month, therefore, the timid have the prospect of
once more traversing the streets in safety. But
what have we to expect from legislative wisdom
for the repression of those powers of nature which
assert their supremacy in flames and smouldering
ruins 1 A Parliamentary Committee last year sat
upon the question, and came to the conclusion
that the fire-engines should be the property of the
police rather than of the insurance companies. Is
this all that we can do T Can our boasted science,
our elaborate civilization, suggest nothing better
for us than that when a fire breaks out we should
send a mile off fora pump, and that the police
should keep its valves well oiled f Nay, it would
seem that even when we have done this our orga-
nization breaks down in the act of setting the
pump at work. Oar water companies are estab-
lished for profit, not for philanthropy, and a mo-
rose turncock last week kept the pumps from work
for half an hour while a family of little children
were being suffocated, because he chose to sup•
pose that the fire to which he was summoned was
" not in hia district." A day or two after we had
an illustration of what we are to expect
when the reform has taken place, and the engines
are worked by official authority. A fire broke
out in the theatre at Plymouth, it extended to the
rest of a magnificent pile of buildings, and the
Government engines stood idle a few hundred
yards off, because there had been some previous
misunderstanding, and they waited this time for
the order from the proper quarter ! Meantime,
unhappily, neither the flames will wait, nor will
those agencies wait which make their outbreak
daily more frequent. Every minute led in extin-
guishing • fire adds to its &Keenan and extent,
and every day adds to our liability to suffer. Old
London decays, its timbers become drier and
more inflammable, while, reckless as he who puts
new wine into old bottles, we introduce in every
quarter those applications of science which are
especially dangerous. Gas, lucifers, new stoves
and furnaces, new lamps, new oils, new trades,
bring in an ever-increasing source of peril
from which a few yeas balk we were exempt.
No care or caution suffices for our safety, for these
dangerous articles are in everybody's hands ; and
our negligent neighbour, or an overworked maid-
of-all-work round the corner, or the children play-
ing in the attics of the street behind, may raise a
conflagration which shall burn us in our beds as
surely as if we had with our own reading lamp
set our own curtains in • blaze.
Yet, with all deference to the wisdom of a Par-
liamentary Committee, we must take leave to sug-
gest—not now for the first time—that thete are
means by which our couches might be rendered a
little more secure from such • horrible awakening.
Our social science has really put in our power far
more simple and far more effectual methods of
dealing with fire than we have yet chosen to use.
In raising and storing water to such elevations as
are required for the supply of the highest houses
in the City, we are furnished with a con-
stant force, by which we can apply it in-
stantaneously to the extinction of burning
materials, and which far transcends the
capacity of the most powerful fire-engines. These
in fact only accomplish, in the feeble degree re-
presented by a dozen men at the handles, or at
most by a steam-engine of a few horse power,
what has been accomplished • million times more
effectually by the accumulated exertion of the
great pumping engines of the water companies.
These last have already raised water from the
Thames to the amount of a hundred millions of
gallons a day, and to a height exceeding that to
which any fire-engine can throw it, and they have
stored up this enormous quantity in such a way
that • child, by turning a tap, could apply the
whole wherever it is wanted. There are two ways
in which such an applicatioN might be arranged.
The one is the system of " constant service," or
the keeping the mains constantly charged with
full pressure. This system the companies are
bound by statute to adopt in any district
in which it may be demanded by a certain
majority of the inhabitants. But it involves the
necessity of • pretty close and frequent inspection
by the officers of the companies, in order to MO
that the water is not allowed to run to waste, and
for this and some other reasons it has not been
generally adopted. But the result might as easily
be attained by lees objectionable means. If every
house were compelled by law to have a cistern of
large capacity immediately under the roof, there
would be a supply abundantly sufficient for any
ordinary fire, and even in extraordinary cases
enough to last till the mains could be turned on.
An iron pipe led from this cistern down the inside
wall of the house, fitted on each floor with a
" union" by means of which • short indiarubber
hose could be attached in a moment, would enable