, 1865-03-03
Post Magazine and Insurance Monitor, Jan. %.
ON THE BEST MODE OF PROTECTING
LONDON FROM THE RAVAGES OF
FIRE.
pv Ty.1 IN Ut Uo,oo IT, X II
BY CHAs. F. T. YOUNG, ESQ, G. E.

perly used and controlled, is an excellent serv-
ant and assistant to man but, when it obtains
the mastery, it is, as we find from past and con-
tlnued experience, q most terrible and ruthless
tyrant, destructive alike to life and property,
and perfectly in~discriminate il its ravages. The
palace and the howell, the prince and the pea
SAINT the old and the young, are equally open
TO Its destructive influence and it becomes the
bounden duty of all to do their best to prevent
ats doing mischief, and con6ne its powers with
IN those bounds in which it is found to act most
beneGcialiy for man.
CareleSsness and w~ilfulne8s are the two best
allies by whose influence it SO frequently ex-
ceeds its bounds, and against these it is impos-
sible always to guard consequently we find,
from the earliest ages, provision made for resti-
tuition or punishment, according to the origin
OF the fire, and in the case of Wilfulness it was
punished by death.
From a death by fire or burning we all in
stlnctlvely shrink, and with reason, for a more
fearful or terrific termination of ones existence
cannot be well imagined therefore, as when a
hre once breaks out it is impossible to foretell
the extent of It's ravages, or the loss of life that
may ensue, it is proper that the punishment
tor arson should be made most severe, and also
that for culpable carelessnes5, the effect being
the same though the motives may differ.
A large fire, especially amongst much inham-
mable material, is an awful and magnificent
sight, and one usually as ruinous and fatal 10
It's results as it is extensive and magnificent in
appearance. In a few hours the labours of a
LIFETIME or even of o generation, disappear,
Ieavlng. IN their place a shapeless, useless mass
of ruin, and the owners or dependents house
less or penniless, aud frequently to commence
again those labours and e~xertions that possibly
another war or Ct would hnva roDdoroJ NINA
cessary.
10 provide some means for counteracting
these dreadful effects seem to have been a part
OF the business of every civilized nation from
the earliest times and there can be no reason
to doubt that such means existed and were in
use, IN most of the celebrated cities of antiquity,
such as Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and others
for 1t is difficult to believe that the engineers
and mechanicians of those cities, whose talents
and skill are 30 we'll known, would have omitted
TO provide some means Of couuteracting or ex-
tinguishing fires, the fearful ravages of which
were we'll known and would be of such Injury
TO their magnificent cities. That this was the
case is rendered the moro probable from our
finding that Piiny the Younger wrote to the
Emperor Trajan asking permission to establish
a fire brigade of $50 men, into which he pro-
posed to admit only those of that business and
WO hHu AAm eCatAug tudb tuo LoWu VI NlCOUeuld
was burnt, because of the lazinesS or Indifference
of the inhabitants, and from want Of proper
machines or apparatus for extinguishing the
flames. When ancient Rome was rebuilt, eve
ry citizen was required to keep in his house "a
machine for extinguishing fire y but what those
machines were we are not informed. AS In
those days there were buckets, mops, hooks and
cyringes, It is reasonable 10 suppose that they
were the latter for we find the dimensions Of
these squirts when employed for extinguishing
FIRE, were generally regulated by those of the
building in which they were to be used. Pliny,
in speaking of FIRE machines, uses the term
"Siphc," which by some is taken for piper or
water tubes; but in a passage from a fragment
of a work of Appollodorus, the architect to the
Emperor T%rajan, We are told that when a fire
occurs in the upper part of a house and the
"Sipho" is not at hand, to take leather bags
and fill them with water, connecting long pipes
to them and then, by COMPRISING the bags,
the water will be threwn to certain heights !;
therefore it is fair to say, from this description,
that whatever the "Sipho" may have been, it
was evidently . ERE engine for if such a rude
COntrivance as that described was applicable in