The Portland daily press., 1889-08-17
STRIKING THE NINE O'CLOCK ALARM.
a Press Reporter Witnesses the oper-
alton.
1t Has Eeen Done by Pure Guess
Work For Three Months.
Few Words About the Fire Alarm
Telegraph.

A few nights ago, just before nine o'clock,
PRESS reporter happening to glance up at
the City Building, saw bright light in the
third story, formerly occupied by the Maine
Historical Society. Being of an inquiring
turn of mind, he promptly climbed the stairs
and approached the door upon which is paint
ed the sign Fire Alarm Telegraph" With
in was found the city electrician, Mr.. Levi
l.. Cummings, and lively, gray kitten
which was skylarking about the floor.
The reporter explained that he was anx-
ious to see the nine o'clock "clips" struck,
with the view of describing it, for the bene-
fit of the public.
"Well," said Mr.. Cummings, "You can de-
scribe it for the benefit of the public, If you
want to; but we don't strike 1t that way any
more. Along in the middle of May the tel
egraph company which has always furnished
us with standard time for nothing, struck,
declining to perform the service any longer,
unless the city paid fifty dollars year in
advance"
"How do you get the correct time now?"
asked the reporter.
excepting that our clock here keeps pretty
good time. 1t isn't infallible though. and
the public ought to know 1t. We do the
best we can but it doesn't seem to me as if
we ought to be made to pay for what doesn't
cost the telegraph company cent"
through the rooms on tour Of inspection.
The large room, formerly used by the His
torical Society has been partitioned of into
two rooms. The easterly one is occupied by
the stands Of battery which operate the fire
and police alarm systems. The batteries
consist of six stands not unlike the book
stacks in the public library, on which the
cells, which number in all more than 800, are
placed The battery is in three parts. The
police system, the closed circuit system,
which runs the large strikers, and the en-
glne. mouse gongs, and an open circuit OF
LeClanche cells which operates the tappers
located in freman's houses.
The apparatus of the alarm is placed in
| the other room. 1t Is veiy simple, consist
ing OF switchboard for the wires, a four
| galvanometers which indicate the strength
Of the battery, and four telegraph keys and
| two saunders.
While Mr.. Cummings was explaining the
working Of thu. repeater, he kept glancipg at
the large clock on the wall, the hands OF
which were creeping round to nine. In a
moment he crossed the room to the stand on
which the galvanometers, the telegraph
| saunders and gong Taper were placed.
He lifted flap under the Taper and de-
box struck, the repeater buzzed out one, the
! Taper on the battery circuit echoed, the big
bell on the First Parish doomed, the India
street bell followed, and all the tappers,
gongs, bells, strikers, vibrators, and all
the mysterious spirit chained up in the 800
cells in the city building echoed. Mr. Cum
mings moved his hand to the second key,
depressed that, and all the bells doomed
again. That was all. Half Of Portland's
population probably pulled out their watches
IN the interval between the two motions of
Mr.. Cummings hand, and thought "all right
So long as the clock holds out they are all
right, but II it should stop for five minutes,
and then start again-the result may better
be imagined than described. People would
lose trains, boats, meals, calls, and q thou.
sand and one dreadful things would follow
Such state of things is not pleasant to re.
fleet upon, and yet it is hard to see how il
can be remedied if the telegraph company
| insists upon payment.
/ The Portland fire alarm telegraph system
| was put in in 1869, with one circuit and has
been growing constantly to the present time.
| 9 engine-hOuse box gongs, and some 60 to
all connected into the central system, divi-
| ded into four circuits. The Portland fire
alarm is Of the kind called the. direct circuit,
in which the alarm Is sent in from the boxes
| going through the automatic repeater in the
| Office without any human interference, and
| going on to the bells and1engine houses al
| once. There are two other systems in vogue
in other places, the non-interference system
and the headquarters system. These have
the advantage Of catching all the stray blows
and other eccentricities that disturb the citi
zens and fremen in Portland; but they have
the disadvantage of requiring much more
costly and intricate mechanism. The street
boxes of course are the initial point of the
whole system. As they are now arranged in
the district system, the first fignre of the
signal gives the section of the city in which
the fire is located, the second, narrowing il
down to particular locality. There are or
an average four keys for each box located il
houses or stores in their immediate vicinity
In addition to these stationary keys, the
police, all watchmen, many fremen and
| other people hold keys, so that it would be
easy at almost any time to call somebody
who could open box, whenever fire is dis
covered. The proceedings which follow
| opening and pulling box are too well
known to need much description. In engine
house No. 5. in addition to the regular figure
indicator, there is an apparatus on the
| principal Of an old fashioned printing tele
| graph which registers the box number on 8
strip Of tape, the first blow besides starting
the tape moving, stopping small clock, Sc
| that the time of alarms might be accurately
/ liant