The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-25 00:00:00

THE GREAT FIRE.

During all Sunday night and the whole of yes-
terday and last evening there was almost the same
anxious crowd pressing to see the ruins caused by
t his tremendous disaster as during the time of the
fire itself. The parapets and copiegs of London-
bridge seemed as thronged as ever, and all the vari-
ous little alleys and byways into Tooley-street, even
those which only commanded a limited view of the
blackened wall, and many from which nothing at
all could be seen, were equally crowded. A force
of over 200 policemen, under Mr. Superintendent
Bradford, is on duty day and night all round the
wide area of half-smoldering fire, and these officers
are most properly inflexible in allowing none to
pass who are not actual owners of property in the
warehouses, or who have not duties to perform
upon the scene. If this rule were relaxed to ever
so trifling an extent it most probably would result
in a series of fatal accidents even more numerous
than those which is now known attended the Great
Fire itself. As far as the mere gratification of
curiosity is concerned, we can assure the numbers
who are now so excluded that there is very little to
see, and even that little can only be witnessed by
incurring an amount of risk that none in their
senses would wish to incur, and against which the
police insure the public by simply keeping
them
out of harm's way. There is such a massof smoul-
dering, and in some ruins yet dangerously active
fire, that the heat alone in most instances prevents
approach. In a few places where the fire has burnt
out, or been half smothered under falling walls, or
where the direction of the wind allows the firemen
to cencentrate their hose and flood the spot from
the mains, one may almost venture upon the very
scene. But even this is not to be attempted save
by those willing to incur the danger of passing
beneath lofty sheets of walls burnt white
as lime, cracked in jagged fissures from base to
summit, and bulged by explosions or warped by the
intense heat till they, lean about in every angle as
if shaken by an earthquake. It seems a marvel
how some of these ponderous slabs of brickwork
still stand, though it is evident they cannot last for
long. Every breath of wind sweeps the charcoal
in clouds of black dust from the burnt beams, and
the mortar comes rattling down, while stray bricks
fall here and there as the whole mass subsides-more
and still more out of the perpendicular.
Architects and surveyors are useless here. They
can only say positively that the walls will certainly
fall, though whether they may hold up a week or
come down the next minute none can tell. 'Where
Mr. Braidwood. and Mr. Scott lost their lives a
whole warehouse seems mined at its foundation and
beetles over the spot at a fearful angle, and the
entire mass may come headlong over at any instant.
The imminence of this danger is increased by the
fact that the cellars under this toppling pile, all
filled with oil, are on fire from end to end. This
cellar is more than 100 feet long by 50 broad, and
from the outlet of this the flames were pouring yes-
terday evening in great red billows as fiercely as
ever. Here the fire must burn for days to come as
furiously as before. None dare approach the build-
ing, and the hose of two engines is fixed up among
the ruins of brickwork so as to pour a flood of water
in at one door of the cellar, which of course drives
the flames from the burning oil out at the other
end. The greater amount of water poured in the
greater seems the flame, but by thus urging it to the
utmost the chances of its becoming exhausted are
increased. The explosion in which Mr. Braidwood
and Mr. Scott lost their lives took place on the
opposite side of the roadway, between two
large warehouses, and right in front of
the still burning cellars. A mass of wall about 50
feet high and 25 broad appears to have been blown
out in large fragments, and now quite fills up the
road with its debris. No less than seven people
were standing almost immediately under this, and
how any of them escaped the great avalanche of
brickwork seems almost a miracle. As we have
said, the warehouse fronting this still overhangs
the spot in such a manner that it was very properly
forbidden to any to search for the bodies, lest still
more lives should be sacrificed in the attempt.
However, as the spot where Mr. Braidwood was
last seen was clearly known, and not so dangerously
close to the ruined buildings, the firemen persevered
in their endeavours to recover the body of their
chief. By working with the utmost care and re-
moving the ruins almost brick by brick they were
fortunately enabled to accomplish their melancholy
task without injury to themselves, and yesterday
morning soon after 3 o'clock they succeeded in dis-
interring the remains from beneath an immense
pile of scattered bricks. The body was not burnt,
but we shall not attempt to describe the injuries it
had received. It is sufficient to say that it was so
awfully crushed, as to be barely recognizable.
Death of course must have been instantaneous.
The body of Mr. Scott has not been recovered, '
though the spot where it is supposed to be is now
pretty accurately ascertained. Unfortunately, how-
ever, the place is just benea h not cnly the tottering
warehouse we have spoken of, but almost under
the calcined remnants of another wall on the
opposite side, which is expected to fall each minute.
It would be little short of manslaughter, therefore,
to allow any men to work in an almost useless
errand among the ruins at this spot.
"What increases the chance of the warehouse fall-
ing is the necessity of pumping on the burning
cellar beneath it. Several times during the course
of yesterday the water finding its way to great yet
confined centres of heat generated explosions of
steam that shook the tottering superstructure above
it, and made the mortar rattle from its walls in the
most ominous manner, so that all those in the
vicinity ran back. Two such explosions occurred
in the space of half an hour yesterday, the last of
which still further increased the gap in the side
walls and left its great front sloping forward like
another leaning tower. The place where this ware-
house stands is about the centre of the fire. Most
of the walls of the warehouses above it on the side
next London-bridge have already fallen. Those on
the other side, towards Horselydown, are still
standing, but in a most dangerous condition. Pass-
ing down from Tooleystreet all the roads and foot
ways are ancle deep in melted tallow, which gives
off a most offensive smell, and upon which it is
scarcely possible to keep one's footing. All along
the various thoroughfares round the scene
of the fire this grease has been scraped up
into huge piles, but the amount thus saved
is a mere unit in comparison with the
enormous quantities lost during the fire. As
far down as Milwall it has been collected in
boatloads by the watermen, many of whom have
realised considerable sums by its sale at 2d. and
2d. a pound. It is now known beyond a doubt
that on the night of the fire, when great quantities
of the grease were floating, very many lives were
lost in the efforts made to collect it. It is not pro-
bable that the number of these unfoitunate persons
who thus fell victims to their rashness or cupidity
will ever be ascertained, though there is now but
too much reason to fear that many thus perished.
One of the police inspectors alone witnessed five
such fatal accidents. The first was to a man alone
in a boat, who, reaching out to scoop up the floating
grease, overbalanced and fell into the water and
was drowned. Another shocking case we are told
was distinctly seen from the landing stage on the
other side of Humphrey's dock in front of the
eastern and still uninjured parts of Hay's wharves.
Four young men were in a boat, which they had
collected almost full of grease; suddenly a great
flood of the boiling fat, all on fire, rushed from one
of the burning wharves out upon the Thames. The
boat in which the men were was immediately sur-
rounded by the blazing mass, and the grease it con-
tained ignited, The four men were seen to plunge
into the river, but none of them were recovered. In
fact, from the state of the flames on the water no
aid could by any possibility have been extended
to them. After passing backwards into Tooley-
street the flames appear to have swept away the
greater• part of Hay's superb range of fire-proof
warehouses like so much wickerwork. The de-
struction along here has been so complete that it is
impossible to distinguish among the huge piles of
charcoal that fill the scorched walls what the
warehouse even contained. Here and there are
masses of half melted iron columns, charred
beams, with fragments of raw hides, burnt sugar,
coffee grains, bundles of charred cane, exploded
barrels, mixed up with bricks, crumbled slates, iron
doors, and floods of melted tallow over all. The pile
of warehouses thus destroyed, take them as a whole,
were probably the finest and best built edifices of
their kind in the kingdom. Everything was of the
most solid and enduring description, and all the
most approved appliances for rendering them fire-
proof were everywhere adopted. To mere flames,
of course, they would have been for days invulrT:
rable, but no building substance known could with
stand such tremendous heat, The walls became
red-
hot when the contents of each floor ignited,
even then the iron doors and shutters kept the
flames confined for a long time. Thepreservation
on
thoughm
e
of the most eastern range of Hay's wharves the
other side of the creek in
uamsps y's dock,
which the vessels which
t m
the walls nowr—e-
t
were recovered lay, and called H her
seems astonishing. Of the hugeu of buildings
which adjoined them nothing
the g b
Par that are burnt
h e b
are stored entirely with barrels of linseed, sperm,
and olive oils, to
mains. The cellarsthbeepnua m
berof somes thousands.
Had but one of these ignited the rest of
Hay's
wharves must have gone, and with them an im-
mense warehouse close at
hand, which is entirely
filled with barrels of spirits of turpentine. That
it did not extend to the east wing of Hay's wharves
is stated to have been entirely due to the intitr-
pidity and personatexertions of A/r. .Hodges, of the
Lambeth Distillery, who • •
in spite of the risk he
was exposed to from flame And falling ruins, got

the hose of an engine to the place where the fire
was just beginning in the cast wing, and extin-
guished it before it had gained any hold. So immi-
nent appeared the danger of the flames cruising the
dock and igniting the east wings that the firemen
in their haste to remove their engine from the dock-
bridge unfortunately moved it too near the edge,
and it fell over into the water and stink instantly.
'There appears to be not the least doubt that the fire
was caused by spontaneous combustion among the
hemp. It is a much more common cause of such
disasters than is generally supposed. Even in
private houses, where damp and greasy clothes
are left in disused scullery cupboards, it is known
to be the first cause of many mysterious conflagra-
tions. If the workmen had not committed the
inexplicable fault of leaving open the sliding
fireproof doors that communicate between the
warehouses there is no doubt the incipient com-
bustion might have been stifled in its own smoke at
the very outset ; but these doors being unfortu-
nately open all the doors were so filled with blind-
ing smoke that none could enter than for more
!Ilan a few yards. Even then, however, the scat
af fire could be distinctly seen, and it was very
so that had anv engine been on the pre-
leises it is said it could have been extinguished at
once. There was none, however, and the men could
do nothing but look on till the engines came. They
were soon
ren the spot, but, as usual there was no
water. M e have been assured that some of the
engines were waiting more than an hour—the
firemen were helpless spectators of the fast spread-
big conflagration, and that constantly during
the night, and at the most critical moments
they were compelled to stop working
from the inadequacy of the water supply.
7e have already spoken of the vaults beneath the
destroyed portion of Hay's wharves containina-
,,
such an immense quantity of valuable oils, and it is
of course a matter of vital importance that all
chance of ignition should be prevented by the ruins
above them being cooled as quickly as possible. For
this purpose there are three engines now stationed
on one side of the building, yet, notwithstanding
the urgent need for their services, we were present
during at least one full hour yesterday when they.
were obliged to desist from their efforts for want of
water, and we were told that that was not the
first time during the day that they had been
thus compelled to remain idle. The loss and
destruction of property, it is now calculated,
will amount to the stupendous sum of £2,000,000
sterling. To rebuild the landing wharves and
warehouses alone will cost, it is stated, at least
£500,000, and of course the value of the ware-
houses bears but a small relative proportion to that
of their contents. It is generally said that insur-
ance companies find their account in fires from the
increase of business brought to them. It will, how-
ever, require an immense increase of business to
cover the loss many of the offices have sustained by
this fire. Perhaps the smart of this infliction may
lead them to investigate as to who, if anybody,
was to blame for there being no water. Every
householder, however, is interested in knowing the.
reason for this astounding neglect, and it is ear-
nestly to be hoped that the matter will not be
dropped in silence.