Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1882-12-28
GERMAN FIRE DEPARTMENT.
Ceremony and Red Tape Hand En-
gines and Water Barrels.

gines and Water Barrels.
Berlin Cor. San Francisco Chronicle.
As each wagon drove up its commanding Of
ficer ordered @Halt!" The wagons stopped;
he dismounted, every one else retaining their
positions. The commander, or foreman, ap-
preached the gentlemen in uniform, made a
military salute, reported, received his orders
and returned to his wagon. Then the men in
the wagon deliberately got out-no hurrying,
no pushing, all being done orderly, and all
climbing down the steps at the rear end of the
wagon. The hand-engine, or water butt as
the case might be, was detached, a couple of
men took charge Of it, and the rest of the COM
pany formed in two lines behind their wagon
and followed it to it's position in the line of
wagons After each foreman had reported
and taken his position there was another
movement on the part of the men. Those
carrying torches laid them down alongside
their respective wagons and disappeared
in the building which was reported to be
burning. Others took their axes over their
shoulders, formed in line, and apparently
awaited orders. Two others backed the water
butt up alongside the hand-engine, while
those i'll charge of the latter got out suction
pipe, screwed one end of it to their engine and
dropped the other end into the water butt
Then they started to unreel their hose from
the little reel on top of the engine which con
sisted in couple of men taking hold of the
end ana walking away until the hose was all
unreeed. Then the other end of the hose
was screwed on to the CINE, and four men
manned the brakes of the latter When all
this had been done the foremen of the differ
cd IN thn lam IAN
in uniform, saluted, and reported The fire, if
there ever had been one, was evidently out,
for the fOremen received orders to pack up
their apparatus and get back to their houses,
which they proceeded to do with all the cere-
mony and method with which their going to
the fire had been accompanied
This WAS the way the performance was car
ried out when there was no use for the de-
partment But not long afterward there WAS
a real fire, the burning of the Hygienic ex-
hibition building How this fire caught no.
body knows, and how it got to burning 80
furlouslv before it was discovered is another
mystery. For, ever since the fire at the hing
theater in Vienna, last year, every place OF
public resort in Berlin has been guarded 10y a
force of hremen. At the HYGIENE exhibit
ton there were always half dozen tiremen
standing around in full uniform. Be that as
it may, however, the building caught fire one
afternoon and was blazing right merrily when
the wagons, water buckets and hand-eng ines
began to arrive, and by the time all the
saluting reporting and routine work had been
gone through with the building was wrapped
in a seething mass of flames. Nothing
dauuted, however, the tiremen set to work
with their little four man-power engines and
squirted away through the little two-inch
linen hose as if they thought they were get
thug the fire under control There were about
twenty of these little engines around the
building, all working fast and furiousy
Sometimes they would throw stream fifty
feet high, but that was when the men at the
brakes were getting warmed up to their work
And just at that time the water would give
out, the butt would have to be trunded Oft for
Lew supply and while the engine was wait
ing for more water the men would lose their
ambition, so that they couldn't throw stream
higher than thirty feet, which didn't do much
good.
After some half an hour of this sort of
work it was decided to call out the two re-
serve steamers, for the neighboring buildings
were beginning to be endangered from the
flying brands. These steamers are reserved
for state occasions and are never used except
at large fires. The natural result was that
they wouldn't work when they arrived on the
scene of action until the whole building had
been destroyed. So the whole work was left
to the hand-engines, and these kept steadily
at work, pumping the water butts empty as
fast as they were reflled, until the whole
building was a mass of embers and charred
timbers. So strict is the discipline in. the de-
partment that not a man will move from his
post nor change the stream he is holding
from the exact place he was ordered to play
uDOn.